Judge: Cook Co. juvenile detention center can hire temps

The 175 staff vacancies at the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center will be temporarily filled by a security firm, a federal judge ruled today.

"We were delighted," said Benjamin Wolf, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who represents the 450 residents at the center. "I think it dealt effectively with the emergency problems out there."

Earl Dunlap, the center's transitional administrator, in April asked Judge John Nordberg to make an emergency motion to temporarily hire help from Wackenhut, a national security company.

The ruling will enable more students to be let back into the Nancy B. Jefferson school, the Chicago public school for juveniles in custody.

After a Feb. 18 brawl injured 16 youths and 10 staffers, Dunlap shut down the school indefinitely, until safety concerns could be resolved.

Officials from Teamsters Local 714, the union to which most center employees belong, said bringing in an independent contractor would violate their collective bargaining agreement.

Teamsters had proposed using temporary union staff workers to fill existing vacancies, a solution Nordberg said, "would unnecessarily increase the danger to both residents and staff because the new workers have not worked at this facility and do not have relationships with residents."

The 175 Wackenhut staffers will begin training next week, said Brenda Welch, the center's deputy transitional administrator. In the meantime, center administrators are in the process of interviewing - and hiring - permanent center staffers.

"It'll probably be about three weeks before we can get more kids back in the school," Welch said.

Only 54 of the center's 450 residents now attend school at Jefferson. The rest of students are being taught in their living units.

Officials are in the process of imposing a new classification system, Welch said.

Residents facing different charges, co-conspirators and rival gang members will all be kept separate in both the living units and the classrooms.

No more than 18 residents will move through the hallways at one time. The security staff, known at the center as counselors, are stationed in each classroom - a measure never used before at Nancy B. Jefferson.

The next residents to be allowed back into the school will likely be special needs students.

"It will at least be 100 more students," she said.