Getting Out and Staying Out

NPR

Half the young people who get out of Illinois youth prisons end up back inside. They
just can’t make it outside. When Illinois broke off its youth prisons from adult ones
three and a half years ago, it vowed to change that. The plan was to flood kids with
support in their communities, to help them connect with school, with work, with
treatment. As part of our series Inside and Out, we’re following young people caught
up in the juvenile justice system. Angelica is one of them. She got out of the girls’
prison at Warrenville in northern Illinois a few months ago. It was her second time
there. Staying out is proving harder, and lonelier, than anyone thought.
Girls sent to youth prisons in Illinois are likely to wind up here, at the Illinois Youth
Center-Warrenville.
Today, there are about 45 girls locked up-from 13 to 20.
And there are more than 100 staff-part of whose job is to make sure girls are
prepared for life on the outside and that they don’t come back when they leave.
Angelica’s been in and out of Warrenville twice-she hates being locked up; she’s
determined not to go back.
On this fall day, she’s been free about a month-she’s in her family home on a quiet
side street on the south side of Chicago.
Angelica is 19. She’s slender with long dark hair and a pretty face.
She’s got her GED-which is really rare for a kid in Illinois prisons -2/3rds haven’t
even finished grade school.
A lot of people in this crowded house are pulling for her, rooting for her, hoping that
this time she’ll stay out of trouble.

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