ACLU cites lack of improvements, nepotism at county Juvenile Center
By Susan S. Stevens
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which filed a class action lawsuit in 1999 to challenge conditions in the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center, might be going back to court because eight years have not produced the improvements it sought.
“We are very concerned,” said Benjamin Wolf, assistant legal director of the ACLU of Illinois.
His statement followed the dismissal of a nationally known expert in juvenile justice, Carl Sanniti, because of what Cook County Board President Todd Stroger’s spokeswoman, Jennifer Koehler, said was a money shortage. Sanniti helped run juvenile justice systems in Maryland, Florida, Ohio, Georgia, and Connecticut before taking the Chicago job in August.
When looking for places to trim the county budget, Sanniti’s salary of about $91,000 a year caught commissioners’ eyes. “He was one of the highest paid people at the center,” Koehler said. Reid Paxson, the Juvenile Center’s chief financial officer, also was cut on a vote by the majority of the commissioners, Koehler said.
At the same time Sanniti lost his job, Cook County Commissioner Joseph Mario Moreno’s sister, Maria Moreno Szafarczyk, kept her job. She was hired in 2005 for $85,000 a year as assistant superintendent and last year was named director of community outreach.
“One of our problems over there [in the juvenile center] is that the top people have no experience,” Wolf said, noting Moreno’s sister “has no experience at all.”
“I think we have to consider going back to court,” Wolf said.
Sanniti was hired in early August 2006, as was Robert “Pete” Catchings, who remains an assistant superintendent. Catchings has more than 20 years of experience in the Illinois Department of Corrections, mostly in the Juvenile Division.
Two months later, the John Howard Association prison reform group noted “a number of improvements in previously observed deficiencies” but said, “The new management team has its work cut out for it. Changes at the top do not automatically result in change in the same and equal directions at middle and lower staff levels.”
The association urged hiring “sufficiently qualified and highly motivated staff” and said it should be trained, supervised, and guided.
“I thought Juvenile Center conditions were going to be all right when it settled the lawsuit in 2002, the county agreeing to a wide range of reforms," Wolf said. “When it became clear that the county failed, we went back to court in the fall of 2005.”
The county agreed in May 2006 to bring in more experts to write a new plan. Interim Cook County Board President Bobbie Steele brought in new leadership that included Sanniti and Catchings. When Stroger was elected and began trimming the county budget, however, the agreement fell apart.
“We think that President Stroger is not concerned with reform,” Wolf said.
Koehler said Stroger is indeed concerned and has assigned Robert Scott of the Department of Public Health to help redraft policies and procedures at the Juvenile Center. Scott is “on loan” from the health department, she said. He is working with Brenda Walsh, who was appointed by the U.S. District Court to oversee compliance.
“She’s still working very hard and doing a good job and reports the county is not in compliance,” Wolf said.
As an indication of the lack of compliance, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services in April began investigating a 13-year-old boy’s allegation that a staff member knocked him into a table and then the floor when he did not eat.
Sanniti, Szafarczyk, and Moreno could not be reached for comment.
