JHA 2022 Evaluation of IDJJ: Hitting a ceiling in juvenile incarceration

In July 2020, the Governor and the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice (IDJJ) announced its 21st Century Transformation Model. IDJJ describes this as a plan to close down large, adult prison-like juvenile facilities and to replace them with smaller, localized, child-centered facilities. The timeline outlined when the plan was released was about four and a half years, with an end date in late 2024. However, nearly three years into the plan, all five of IDJJ’s existing youth centers remain open with no planned closures articulated. JHA believes that IDJJ has reached a point where the impact of further improvements is limited by the adult prison-style model of its system and facilities, which affects youth in ways that are impossible to overcome. (2023)