In advance of releasing her $3 billion spending plan for 2012, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle spoke about one expense she hopes to slash next year--the astronomical cost of jailing juveniles in Illinois.
Preckwinkle said during a breakfast at the Union League Club in Chicago that the city's underage jail population averages about 350 juveniles every day, at a cost of $600 per child per day, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. Reducing that population will free her to cut staffing and other costs at the Juvenile Temporary Detention Center on the West Side. About 42 precent of young offenders stay at the facility for less than a week.
But for those who serve longer terms, annual cost of jailing a single juvenile is about $224,000 a year, Preckwinkle said--that's more than tuition at Harvard, Fox Chicago reports. One year's tuition, room and board at Harvard University costs about $52,000.
Preckwinkle says that for every 100,000 juveniles living in Cook County, about 35 are in jail, the Sun-Times reports. But in Harris County Texas, the third most populous county in the country that trails just behind Cook, there are 19 juveniles incarcerated for every 100,000. She attributes Cook's higher rate to holes in the system, often pertaining to law enforcement's inability to contact guardians, rather than a higher incidence of violent crimes.
“This information points to the fact that these kids don’t need to be there,” Preckwinkle said, according to the Sun-Times, adding "We’re spending more money to keep juveniles in the juvenile detention center than it costs to send a kid to Harvard.”