A court-approved panel of outside experts with broad experience working directly in juvenile detention centers will develop and monitor the implementation of a specific plan to improve the pervasive and continuing climate of violence and chaos for the children detained at the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center (JTDC) under a proposal approved today by the Cook County Board of Commissioners. The proposal will be presented later this week to U.S. District Court Judge John A. Nordberg in Chicago for final approval. Under the proposal, the panel of outside experts will devise detailed recommendations for improving conditions at the JTDC. The plan developed by the experienced experts will be monitored by a court-appointed Compliance Administrator who will work alongside the existing management at the facility to bring the JTDC into compliance with a 2002 agreement designed to improve management, accountability and conditions at the facility housing as many as 450 young people on a given day. A series of independent evaluations of the facility, media investigations and interviews with children detained at the JTDC and other public reports demonstrated that children at JTDC continued to be subject to harsh, arbitrary treatment often including physical violence.

The agreement ratified by the Cook County Board today is the result of months of negotiations between Cook County and lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, who represent the juveniles detained at the facility. Judge Nordberg previously encouraged the two sides to work with the court-appointed monitors to negotiate a settlement of this matter.

Under the agreement, Cook County must bring the JTDC into "substantial compliance" with a 2002 settlement agreement within eight months. To achieve this goal, the County agreed, among other provisions, to cede all control of all health, dental, and mental health care services at the JTDC to the Cook County Bureau of Health Services within sixty days. Outside experts examining the JTDC regularly faulted the health care services at the facility as substandard.

"The agreement provides a strong starting point for achieving positive changes at the JTDC," said Benjamin Wolf, Associate Legal Director for the ACLU of Illinois. "We believe the involvement of a panel of juvenile corrections experts ensures development and implementation of a comprehensive, cohesive plan that improves the heretofore deplorable conditions at the facility."

The agreement represents a significant change from the original settlement of 2002. In the original agreement, the defendants had the authority to design the plan for improving conditions at the juvenile facility. Under the new court order, the County must follow the independent experts' plan. In the original agreement, there was no on-site court representative with the power to direct the implementation of the improvement plan. Under the new court order, the Compliance Administrator will effectively direct implementation of the plan.

To facilitate its promise to bring the JTDC into compliance with the previous agreement, the court-approved expert panel will work with court monitors already familiar with the operations at the facility to develop a Modified Implementation Plan setting out specific recommendations for improving conditions at the JTDC, defining a specific schedule for compliance, and creating periodic benchmarks to measure the County's progress. While the County and the lawyers for the juveniles detained at the facility will comment on the Modified Implementation Plan, it will be up to the court appointed monitors to approve its final contents, after which the plan will be enforceable in court.

An independent Compliance Administrator will be responsible for "day-to-day" coordination and supervision of the implementation of the improvement plan at the JTDC. Under the agreed structure, the Compliance Administrator will make recommendations to the current Superintendent of the JTDC about the best, most effective means of bringing the County into compliance with the 2002 agreement. If the Superintendent determines to reject any of the Compliance Administrator's suggestions, the Superintendent must submit in writing the reason for ignoring the advice. The court-appointed monitors - and ultimately the court - will mediate any such disputes.

Today's action is the latest development in a lawsuit originally filed in 1999. Three years later, the County agreed to develop and implement a plan to improve conditions at the facility. By 2005, little improvement could be seen, according to the ACLU of Illinois and experts who investigated the situation inside the facility. In October 2005, for example, published reports described concerns about the continued use physical restraints on juveniles by adult staff, including the use of a "chokehold" that the children described as putting someone to sleep. The monitors also expressed concern about the overuse of room confinement, often resulting in children being isolated in their rooms for up to 36 hours or longer.

Responding to these and other concerns, the ACLU of Illinois asked Judge Nordberg to appoint a Manager with expertise in juvenile correctional planning and administration to develop an implementation plan that would bring the JTDC into compliance with the 2002 settlement agreement. Judge Nordberg asked the two parties to negotiate, resulting in the settlement agreement approved by the County Board today.

"Today is an important step on the road to improving the JTDC," said Wolf. "We look forward to working with the monitors, the independent experts and the court to assure that each child at the JTDC gets the services and care necessary."

• Download a copy of the settlement agreement approved by the Cook County Board at http://www.aclu-il.org/news/archives/jimmydoe.pdf