CHICAGO | State officials, public employee unions and policy groups are conflicted over which agency should oversee the state's delinquent and paroled youths.
Gov. Pat Quinn is seeking to move the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice, the state agency which oversees incarcerated minors, into the larger Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.
Quinn's Chief-of-Staff Jerry Stermer stressed that the proposed move would provide more resources toward helping incarcerated youths reintegrate into society.
"These are young people that we're going to focus on, and we're going to do everything we can to get them to lead productive lives," he said before a legislative committee Wednesday.
Stermer added that the Quinn administration had not submitted a legislative proposal and gave no timetable on when that would occur.
The Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice began as an arm of the Illinois Department of Corrections, the state agency that oversees incarcerated adults and parolees. Four years ago, the state's Department of Juvenile Justice became its own independent agency.
IDJJ oversees 3,000 youths according to agency head Kurt Friedenauer. Stermer indicated Friedenhauer would resign at the end of the month to make way for Arthur Bishop, a top official with the Illinois Department of Child and Family Services.
The public union, American Federation of the State, County and Municipal Employees, opposed the proposed merger of state agencies.
A recent study from the Illinois arm of AFSCME contended that combining the two agencies would not solve the fundamental problems associated with incarcerated youths, such as high recidivism rates and substance abuse.
The study included a survey of AFSCME workers who worked with youths that suggested changes to current programs.
From one surveyed AFSCME employee: "These youth need more programs preparing them for life after parole -- living skills, job skills, independent living, how to apply for a job. They leave here without these skills and then reoffend. We send them home with a GED certificate and no other training."
The report also indicated the overall reduction in staff within IDJJ.
Eddie Caumiant, an AFSCME official who handles matters concerning workers within juvenile justice and corrections agencies, said a merger should not be the state's first move in addressing troubled youths.
"It comes down to training (for workers). It comes down to a transition that was the purported mission of DDJ when it was first founded four years ago, which was to move to a therapeutic model. If that's what we want to do, then we need to train staff to do that," he said.
Caumiant also expressed concern that the merger would give the Quinn administration a way to reduce the union workforce.
But Stermer said a merger would allow IDJJ to confer with IDCFS on combining resources and knowledge, and would help the juvenile justice department to leverage for federal funds under the guise of IDCFS.
State Rep. Greg Harris, D-Chicago, said he would reserve judgment on the merger until he better understood what route would help youths the most.
"I think we've heard over and over again that there are gaps in mental health assessment, substance abuse assessment, educational assessment. No one has yet demonstrated how those gaps are going to be filled just by shuffling people around," he said.
State Rep. Karen Yarbrough, D-Broadview, head of the legislative committee on public safety that met on Wednesday to discuss the merger, said future meetings on the merger would be scheduled but did not indicate an exact time.
