Yesterday afternoon, I trudged over to the Cook County Building downtown to support an action organized by the Audy Home Campaign which is led by youth from Generation Y/Center for Change and Fearless Leading by the Youth. The Campaign aims to develop the leadership of youth directly impacted by juvenile incarceration to improve conditions in the detention center, and shut it down and replace it with alternative community-based programs.

The young people’s action took place in front of the office of Cook County Board President, Toni Preckwinkle. Preckwinkle has been vocal about her belief that the War on Drugs has been a failure. Who can argue with her about that? It is certainly good to hear a public figure speaking forcefully about the need for alternatives to incarceration particularly for non-violent drug offenders (in Preckwinkle’s case).

In October, Ms. Preckwinkle unveiled her budget for the County and she proposed cutting the population of the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center (JTDC) by half over two years in an effort to save money. Here is some of what she had to say as she unveiled the budget:

“Detaining defendants in the jail while they await trial is very expensive for the county and is detrimental to our communities,” Ms. Preckwinkle told county commissioners on Tuesday. “The war on drugs has failed to eradicate drug use. Instead, it has resulted in the incarceration of millions throughout the nation — 100,000 annually right here in Cook County, at a cost of $143 per inmate per day.”

Locking up young people at the Juvenile Temporary Detention Center is even more expensive, upward of $600 a day per person, Ms. Preckwinkle said, with little benefit to the offender or society.

“So we’re spending four times what it would cost to send a child to Harvard to keep juveniles locked up,” said Ms. Preckwinkle, a former high school history teacher. “This just doesn’t make sense.”

The youth leaders who were demonstrating in front of Ms. Preckwinkle’s office yesterday were there to demand QUALITY alternatives to incarceration. They are worried that youth voices are currently absent from the debate and are also concerned about the fact that electronic monitoring might figure prominently in the County’s decarceration strategy. While the youth support the move to significantly reduce the numbers of their incarcerated peers, they also want to make sure that the resources are actually diverted back into high quality community-based programs. I shot some terrible video at the action but you can hear the youth express their concerns in their own words:

Also, here are the youth chanting when they first arrived. I always enjoy some good chanting…

Last week, I put together a fact sheet using 2010 data about the Cook County JTDC for those who might be interested.