In a scathing report, a group of juvenile justice experts says the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center — a five-story fortress on the West Side with courtrooms and a public school that houses as many as 175 youths — should be permanently shut down and replaced with smaller, community-based facilities focused on rehabilitation.
The report comes from a committee convened last year by Chief Cook County Judge Timothy Evans, whose office oversees the detention center, which is the country’s largest stand-alone juvenile jail. Evans asked the committee to evaluate procedures at the detention center, especially regarding how long youths are confined to their cells.
