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* UPDATED x1 * Yet another DCFS outrage

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For the first time ever, Cook County is sending a bill to the State of Illinois for the cost of holding state wards left waiting at the juvenile jail by the Department of Children and Family Services. […]

It comes after a recent WBEZ investigation found that the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) routinely leaves hundreds of kids stuck behind bars for weeks, or even months, after a judge has said they can go home. Because they are wards of the state, the kids can’t leave the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center until the department finds them proper placement. […]

The invoice being sent to DCFS covers just two months—December and January—and it comes to $232,750.

The invoice is for 41 DCFS wards who spent a combined 665 days in jail after a judge told them they were free to go. […]

Along with the invoice is a letter from juvenile jail administrator Dunlap to DCFS Director George Sheldon. In it, Dunlap blasts the department for the “agency’s willful disregard to juveniles’ constitutional rights.”

How can this happen?

Ugh.

Let’s hope Gov. Rauner’s new director can fix this inherited mess. His predecessors should be ashamed of themselves.

* Speaking of incarceration and impacts on the state budget, this is from a Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities press release sent a few weeks ago…

Governor Bruce Rauner’s $27 million cuts to drug treatment services undermine the very criminal justice reforms that he has been publicly championing.

Criminal justice reforms and cost savings simply cannot happen without drug treatment and coordinated case management upon which Illinois courts rely.

Last year alone, working with judges and community-based treatment providers, TASC diverted 2,080 people from prison and immediately saved Illinois $35 million. Under the governor’s proposed budget for next year, millions of those savings would be wiped out.

* I followed up and asked for more details, but my e-mail has been a bit screwy lately. I finally found the source of the problem yesterday, so a ton of unsent e-mails were finally released from purgatory. Turns out, a whole lot of Mac users are having the same problem.

Anyway, TASC responded today…

Rich,

Thanks for reaching out. For the cost savings, we calculate the cost of TASC and treatment (both funded by DASA) vs. the cost of incarceration in IDOC. In FY14, 2,080 people were mandated to TASC as an alternative to prison — these were individuals with non-violent felony offenses that otherwise would result in a sentence to IDOC (usually about 12-18 months).

Cost of one year of prison for 2,080 people: 2,080 x 21,000 (IDOC average annual incarceration cost) = $43,680,000

Alternatively, average cost of TASC plus DASA-funded treatment: 2,080 x $4,200 (DASA average cost of treatment plus TASC internal average of client served) = $8,736,000

Difference to the state: $43,680,000 - $8,736,000 = $34,944,000

Our cost savings estimate is conservative. We used the IDOC average per capita cost from the IDOC FY13 annual report (p. 64), which is the most recent available.. If we calculate the cost of IDOC at $22,655, as per IDOC’s Financial Impact Statement, the cost savings of alternatives to incarceration are even greater.

*** UPDATE *** Steve Schnorf makes a very valid point in comments…

So each time the IDOC prisoner census increases by one, the GA convenes and approps an additional $21,000, and each time a prisoner is released or dies, the approp goes down by $21,000. Those sorts of analyses are worth about the cost of the paper they’re written on. Unfortunately, they are frequently used to justify this program or that.

When one future incarceree is diverted the savings are so infinitesimal as to be calculable. When several or many are diverted the savings are still quite small. Only when you reduce the census enough to close a unit (if we are fortunate enough that they all are of the same approximate classification, etc) would you begin to see savings of close to half of $21,000 per avoided inmate, and only when you have the right number and mix that you can close a whole prison if you can get rid of the prison) do you get up closer to $20,000.

These sorts of programs should be justified primarily on their intrinsic programmatic values, not on some cooked up savings numbers.

posted by Rich Miller
Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 10:17 am

Comments

To save $1, we pay $4?

Comment by DuPage Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 10:26 am
Good comaprision, however, do they take into consideration those that sit at the county jail awaiting trial, that don’t bond out, and get day for day credit? that would make a differance

Comment by Todd Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 10:43 am
How can this happen? DJJ can’t release them until they have a place to go. Release them with no place to go and they wind up right back in juvie. This situation isn’t so black and white. We need less finger pointing and useless outrage more transitional housing and assistance to youth who are homeless.

Comment by Politix Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 10:58 am
==the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) routinely leaves hundreds of kids stuck behind bars for weeks, or even months==

This has become ==ROUTINE==? How long has this gone on? Sounds like DCFS had enough time to do something about this, maybe even years, but did not.

Anyone from DCFS who chose to leave these kids in jail instead of anywhere else should be locked behind bars themselves.

Comment by Formerly Known As... Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 11:15 am
A county detention center is not DoJJ. County detention is to DoJJ like county jail is to DOC. These are older DCFS wards who are hard to place because they are older and have engaged in some level of criminal behavior - bad enough to make them hard to place in foster care but not bad enough to warrant detention. Not meant as an excuse for DCFS but this isn’t just laziness. There is no simple solution. Being downstate I am shocked that this has been allowed to happen. In my county I think a juvenile court judge would have hauled DCFS in on contempt charges by day 2 after he ordered the kid released from detention!

Comment by girllawyer Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 11:17 am
Questions to ask regarding kids being left in Juvenile Detention are 1)what are the nature of the offenses?- this may have direct impact on the ability to obtain background clearance to place in a foster home 2) Why can’t they return to their previous placement? 3) Are they waiting to be placed into a group home or residential placement? 4)What private agencies are these cases assigned to and what efforts have those agencies made to identify a placement?

Frankly DCFS could/should then turn around and bill the private agencies for leaving their kids in Juvenile Detention past their discharge. DCFS has historically threatened agencies that they would make them pay back federal money taken from DCFS when the agency poorly serviced a case and received a No Reasonable Efforts in Juvenile Court- yet they never followed through on this. Maybe they should.

Comment by carbaby Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 11:18 am
TASC is clearly a worthwhile, money-saving program. But using per capita IDOC costs might overstate the savings as the people who are eligible for TASC are generally lower level security risks and presumably would be housed in less expensive to operate correctional institutions. Almost no one headed for Menard would be eligible for TASC.

Comment by anon Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 11:25 am
Doesn’t DCFS still have an emergency shelter system, and an expensive one at that. Presumably, these adolescents could be placed in emergency shelter slots (which cost taxpayers many hundreds of $$$ per slot) until a more permanent placement is found. That’s what emergency slots are for–emergencies. Virtually all child welfare systems have them.

Perhaps more importantly, why is DCFS caring for so many adolescents? Kids aren’t supposed to grow up in foster care, the guardian (DCFS) is supposed to find them permanent living arrangements so they can leave state wardship.
Sure, there will be some who can’t be adopted or placed in subsidized guardianhip. But hundreds?

Does Sheldon have a plan or, like his boss, is the plan still a work in progress. DCFS doesn’t lack for administrative personnel to work on these problems–the agency is awash in deputies, assistant deputies, bureau chiefs and so on. Not sure how long we taxpayers should be patient. Nobody forced these jobs on Sheldon or his boss, the governor. Time to do the work.

Comment by Cassandra Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 11:36 am
@Politix - imho, the length of time and number of juveniles are key to this.

Did this recently start? Or has it been occurring for months or even years? That makes a difference.

And while it may not be possible to prevent this from ever happening to a few juveniles, this is hundreds at a time.

Comment by Formerly Known As... Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 11:41 am
Maybe we can shelter these kids in the new $35M school being built in Speaker Madigan’s district?

Comment by Formerly Known As... Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 11:44 am
Cassandra- you cannot place kids in the shelter from DOC or psychiatric hospitals because the shelter is not a placement. Now as the Director- he can override that policy and have those kids placed in the shelter- providing they have the capacity to take those kids. But before doing so, the Director must lean hard on all of the Private Agencies that are leaving their wards in Juvenile Detention. If a Private agency worker/supervisor/director called the shelter to try and get their kid placed there, that would be a pointless call.

Comment by carbaby Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 12:39 pm
So each time the IDOC prisoner census increases by one, the GA convenes and approps an additional $21,000, and each time a prisoner is released or dies, the approp goes down by $21,000. Those sorts of analyses are worth about the cost of the paper they’re written on. Unfortunately, they are frequently used to justify this program or that.

When one future incarceree is diverted the savings are so infinitesimal as to be calculable. When several or many are diverted the savings are still quite small. Only when you reduce the census enough to close a unit (if we are fortunate enough that they all are of the same approximate classification, etc) would you begin to see savings of close to half of $21,000 per avoided inmate, and only when you have the right number and mix that you can close a whole prison if you can get rid of the prison) do you get up closer to $20,000.

These sorts of programs should be justified primarily on their intrinsic programmatic values,
not on some cooked up savings numbers.

Comment by steve schnorf Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 2:26 pm
Well, jail isn’t a placement either. The shelter would seem to be a better non-placement than juvenile hall.

Sheldon was hired and is very well paid to fix these problems. Lean on the POS agencies, make shelter beds available, whatever. These are internal bureaucratic problems we are paying him, and his large management staff to handle.

Comment by Cassandra Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 2:34 pm
Another problem is that the law allows placement with DCFS as a sentence for delinquents up to age 15. (705 ILCS 405/5-710, Juvenile Court Act) So if a kid commits delinquent acts (crimes) and the court doesn’t think probation at home is adequate, the kid can be placed in DCFS custody. Then he commits another crime and goes to detention but is released. He’s never been (officially) abused or neglected but he’s DCFS’s problem nonetheless.

Does anybody else remember when Quinn tried to put all of DoJJ under DCFS? And we wonder why DCFS can’t seem to do its job.

Comment by girllawyer Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 3:06 pm
Still I wonder how many DCFS wards come into DCFS custody annually solely as a result of the delinquency provisions above. Sheldon should be taking a census to determine if certain judges are overusing this option. Many of these youngsters could probably be served at home with more intensive services instead of going into state wardship. But somebody high up in the bureaucracy needs to identify the problem and take the necessary steps including working with the other state agencies. It really isn’t rocket science and under a “reform” administration that is trying to prove itself (the Rauner admin) there should be fewer barriers to change than there usually are.

Comment by Cassandra Monday, Mar 16, 15 @ 4:39 pm
How about a break down of TASCS cost separate from DASA average cost.

Comment by St Germaine Tuesday, Mar 17, 15 @ 6:51 am
“How can this happen?”

Because, from top to bottom, DCFS is absolutely broken. All I know is what I read in the newspaper, but the only conclusion that can be drawn from the Tribune report last year and this latest revelation is that the department should be dismantled–the nuclear option, so to speak–and replaced with a brand new agency drawn completely from scratch. Rich is right: There is no excuse for this sort of thing, but this sort of thing keeps happening over and over again. I’m sure that there are some good people who work at DCFS, just as there are good people who work in all kinds of other dysfunctional agencies, but my guess is that there are not enough people in critical positions to prevent enormous damage from happening to, as the governor says, our most vulnerable citizens.

Rauner needs to fix this. He’s been a disaster so far with his silly right to work schemes and make-believe budgeting. If he can’t get the state’s fiscal house in order and he can’t protect children, what can he do?

Comment by Disgusting Tuesday, Mar 17, 15 @ 8:10 am