DETENTION COMMITTEE REPORT     December 1, 2005

The Detention Committee met at the Spring Conference in Rockford on April 13, 2005, and a Detention Managers’ Workshop was held at Rend Lake on June 29 and 30, 2005.   At the workshop Mike Mahoney, Chair of the Illinois Juvenile Justice Commission, addressed the Detention Managers to facilitate a discussion about conditions of confinement and the Youth Law Center guidelines for the JDAI self-inspections.  John Chiurato, IDOC Office of Jail and Detention Standards provided an update of information regarding the status of juvenile IDOC standards.    Detention managers urged Mr. Chiurato to convey to his Director that they would like to see implementation of the standards drafted by the 2002 task force.  Susan Whitkin, U of I provided a presentation about the status of the statewide JMIS report, and Erica Hughes from the Criminal Justice Authority spoke about the IJJC state-wide annual detention report.  The highlight of the trip to Rend Lake was a tour of the Franklin County Juvenile Detention Center.

 On August 18, 2005 faculty from the Youth Law Center provided a one-day workshop to prepare JDAI site self-inspection teams to go forward with their facility self-inspections.  Many detention facility managers and detention committee members were participants in the workshop.  The most recent Detention Committee meeting was held October 21, 2005 at the spring conference in Decatur, where much discussion focused upon potential difficulties and concerns related to the Youth Law Center guidelines.  The committee also discussed concerns related to the potential fiscal impact of Senate Bill 458 and other pending legislative bills.  The committee will closely examine the bills and provide the Association with input relative to a position on each of the bills.  Tom Ambrose addressed the committee as well to share dialogue about Detention training.  Tom indicated that although they would like to keep the same format for Detention Basic, it will be necessary to bring in trainers to replace Theo Carter.  Thus, they are in search of dynamic individuals with expertise in the areas of training that Theo covered.  Funding has also been acquired to enable U of I Springfield to create video modules for training.  Tom encouraged the Detention Committee to provide suggestions regarding what training is needed for detention workers in Illinois juvenile detention facilities.

  Lastly, we bade thank you, farewell and Best Wishes to Joanne White who was retiring at the end of October and Theo Carter who moved to Atlanta.