The ACLU has been the leader in the struggle to protect the reproductive rights of women. 
We are actively monitoring and enforcing a federal court settlement in this class action lawsuit, which requires the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center to provide safe and clean living conditions for the children in their care.
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The original settlement, reached in 2002, is designed to bring one of the nation’s largest juvenile detention facilities up to constitutional standards. In the years since the original settlement was approved, our own experts and independent monitors reported regularly that substandard conditions – including horrific incidents of violence by staff against children –persisted. In August 2007, the court issued an order creating the Office of the Transitional Administrator and the court appointed Earl Dunlap as Transitional Administrator (TA) to bring the facility into compliance with the 2002 agreement. Mr. Dunlap, who assisted in improving conditions at a juvenile detention center in Washington, DC, was given the necessary authority to accomplish his task.
Two groups of employees hired by the TA have been trained and started working on two new centers – dubbed “facilities within a facility” – each housing 50 youths. Hiring for employees for these centers should soon be completed. Additionally, Mr. Dunlap was forced to go to court seeking authority to contract for temporary security staff and, until permanent staff are hired, to set aside provisions in the JTDC’s collective bargaining agreement with the union representing most of the employees so that he can reassign staff where they are needed without regard to seniority. The union intervened and opposed the motion. In May 2008, the Court ruled in favor of the Mr. Dunlap’s motion. The union has appealed to the federal appellate court and litigation around these issues continues. The union also is challenging a plan by Mr. Dunlap to lay off employees who have regular contact with residents who have not graduated from college, unless the employee passes a screening test and commits to obtaining a four-year college degree within a reasonable period of time. Mr. Dunlap maintains this process is necessary to bring the new centers into compliance with appropriate national standards. We are responding in support of Mr. Dunlap’s efforts.
