Report: Illinois youth prisons lack staff, services

State youth prisons remained understaffed and lacking in rehabilitative services in 2009, a situation that "continues to be a problem" for the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice, according to a report released Tuesday.

The report by the John Howard Association of Illinois, a prison reform group, found staff-to-youth ratios of 1-to-24 by day and 1-to-60 by night in some facilities across the state. Numerous counseling and administration positions remained vacant.

"It is difficult to imagine effecting change in youth's thinking and behavior with such high ratios," the association's 2009 Summary Report stated. "These ratios also contribute to unsafe facilities."

The findings come as the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice, created in 2006, faces mounting pressure to address its "outdated and under-maintained facilities, an insufficient budget, an intransigent unionized staff and a virtually nonexistent administrative structure," as the association describes it.

Also prompting the call for change was a 16-year-old boy's suicide in September at the Illinois Youth Center in St. Charles.