In a recently released national study, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) found that Illinois ranked among the four worst states in the country for rates of reported sexual victimization in juvenile detention facilities.
The United States still puts more children and teenagers in juvenile detention than any other developed nations in the world, with about 70,000 detained on any given day in 2010. And as it turns out, this is very likely a bad idea.
The chair of the Illinois Juvenile Justice Commission says Gov. Pat Quinn must act quickly to protect kids in the state’s youth prisons. Retired Judge George Timberlake says incarcerated youth need to be able to complain safely to an independent government employee.
The head of Illinois' youth prison system said he is "extremely concerned" by a recent Justice Department report that found Illinois has one of the highest rates of sexual assault against young inmates in the country.
The United States Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) has released a new report detailing rates of sexual victimization in the nation’s juvenile facilities.
More than 1 in 5 juveniles at a now-defunct Joliet youth prison reported being victims of sexual assault, one of the highest rates in the country, according to a report released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Justice.
In a year of great fiscal challenge, the General Assembly approved Gov. Pat Quinn’s proposal to double funding for Redeploy Illinois, a successful program helping teens get services in their communities instead of behind sent away to distant prisons. Legislators also passed a bill to customize Redeploy programs for Cook County neighborhoods and bring the diversion program to the state’s largest county for the first time.
A year ago, one of America's great cities had become one of its deadliest as gun violence exploded in Chicago. By this time last year, 179 people had been shot to death. This year, the number is 117 – a drop of 35 percent.
As a photographer, how far would you go to get in the heads of your subjects? For Richard Ross, it meant 24 hours in solitary confinement at a juvenile detention center.
The number of youth who exit Illinois state detention centers and find themselves right back in one soon after has decreased in recent years. But the rate remains stubbornly high and is projected be above 40 percent in 2013.
