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Standards, Oversight For Jailed Kids Need To Improve: Watchdog Report

NPR | Published on 4/13/2021
To read the full article, visit: https://www.nprillinois.org/post/standards-oversight-jailed-kids-need-improve-watchdog-report#stream/0


The Recommendations include three key changes to the current standards:

1. Youth in detention facilities need greater protection through enactment of specific, uniform standards, informed by current best practices, that clearly define youths’ rights and these facilities’ obligations.

2. Public oversight of conditions and treatment of youth in Illinois’ county juvenile pre-trial detention facilities is inadequate and must be expanded.

3. Oversight of state juvenile prisons and county juvenile pre-trial detention facilities should be consolidated under the centralized authority of a single entity, the Office of the Independent Juvenile Ombudsman, because existing decentralized, opaque oversight spread across multiple state agencies is ineffective to protect children in pre-trial detention.

To read the commentary on the recommendations, visit: https://www.thejha.org/special-reports/031021

To review the current detention standards, visit: https://ilga.gov/commission/jcar/admincode/020/02002602sections.html