Work beats prison
Frank Kopecky is a retired legal studies professor at University of Illinois Springfield and was president of the Juvenile Justice Initiative between 2004 and 2007. He is a policy consultant for a possible Redeploy Illinois site for Sangamon County. Kopecky sees a strong possibility for Sangamon County to become part of the state-funded program because there were 52 youth sentenced to juvenile corrections between 2008 and 2010. “Decatur is involved, Christian County is involved, Peoria is involved, so we’re sort of surrounded. Sangamon would fit right in there,” he says.
Sangamon, Tazewell and LaSalle counties have applied for Redeploy Illinois planning grants. Sangamon was awarded $8,785 to analyze data from youth sent into juvenile corrections within the past three years. The Institute of Legal, Legislative and Policy Studies at University of Illinois Springfield is currently analyzing data on youths’ prior offenses, family life, age and ethnicity to understand the needs of future offending youth. Sangamon County will have until mid-August to apply for startup money if officials decide to do so.
Sangamon County Court Services Department director Mike Torchia says Sangamon County’s caseload of nearly 150 juveniles with five probation officers is “pretty much manageable,” depending on the risklevel of youth. But programs to supplement probation by keeping youth busy and out of trouble are lacking.
One reason the county has applied for the planning grant is to find out if there is a gap in court services or other programs. Terry Moore, assistant director of Sangamon County Court Services, says that services to youth have been “scaled back to where we’re doing what we’re mandated by the law to do.”
“As the state’s money has dried up, the city has not been able to sustain positions,” says Moore.
For example, the day and evening reporting program is an after-school program that once gave teens a meal and homework help, as well as a ride service. That program has since been cut.
It shouldn’t be hard to see that Sangamon County needs the programming, according to Kopecky.
“You can serve a kid better in the community and certainly cheaper than you can in a correctional institution,” he says.
A 2010 cost-benefit analysis by the Illinois Department of Human Services released May 19 shows that teens sent to juvenile prison
from Macon County dropped from 51 to 36 during 2010, a 29 percent reduction. The state saved $736,869 in 2010 by keeping Decatur youth in their home community. The entire program saved the state more than $9 million in 2010.
