Marion County Sheriff Kevin Cripps doesn’t feel taxpayers should have to pick up the cost of One Hope United residents who are detained for crimes while at the Centralia campus.
He told the Law Enforcement Committee of the county board Tuesday night that One Hope has now agreed to pay half the cost, but that isn’t enough.
“One Hope United is the problem,” Cripps said. “If the state of Illinois wants to continue to send kids there and One Hope United cannot maintain control of those kids, who’s at fault? It’s not Marion County’s fault. It’s the state of Illinois’s fault. They’re the ones that continue to send them there. DCFS has already been under the microscope of kids getting hurt throughout the state. To me, this is no different. This is one hundred percent a state of Illinois problem.”
Cripps says holding One Hope United residents is expensive. With no juvenile detention facilities in the Southern part of the state, they are transporting the juveniles four to six hours one way for court appearances and paying $200 to $300 per day per resident to stay at the facilities. Cripps notes the number of trips is causing extreme overtime.
Right now, there are four One Hope United residents who have been ordered to stay in juvenile detention on charges such as robbery, mob action, and aggravated battery.
Centralia Police Chief Christopher Locke says they have also been holding meetings with One Hope United to try and find a way to cut down on the number of crimes the residents are involved in. After the last meeting, Locke said One Hope had agreed not to bring any more residents to Centralia until they could find a solution to the problem.
There is a juvenile delinquency problem beyond One Hope as three additional juveniles are currently being held in detention. Cripps says he doesn’t remember at any other time in his law enforcement career that seven juveniles were in custody at one time.
