The following exert is from an article written by Patrick Smith on WBEZ.org on February 17th.

There’s a kid in the Cook County juvenile jail right now who isn’t supposed to be there. A judge ordered his release on January 29.

Because he is a juvenile, WBEZ isn’t using his name, but his problem is not unique. Even after a judge has ordered their release, lots of kids wait weeks, even months to be picked up.

Their deadbeat guardian is the State of Illinois, and these kids are stuck in juvenile jail because the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) can’t find a place to put them.

A WBEZ analysis of data from Cook County found that in the three-year period between October 2011 and October 2014, there were 344 instances when kids waited a week or more in the jail for DCFS to come pick them up.

Last year the longest wait was 190 days—more than half the year.

And it’s not just that there are a lot of young people waiting. They are waiting specifically because of the failures of DCFS.

Kids get sent to the juvenile jail for a number of reasons. Some are waiting for trial, others are serving a punishment. No matter who they are or why they’re there, kids can’t leave unless someone comes to take custody of them.

The data doesn’t account for how many of the 344 times involved the same kid held more than once, so to check on daily counts, we asked jail staff to give us a snapshot of every kid who was waiting to be picked up. On the day we asked, Oct. 16, 2014, there were 19 kids in the jail who had been ordered released by a judge and were just waiting on a guardian to pick them up.

Thirteen were waiting for DCFS.

“I think it sends a very disturbing message to a child to say there’s no reason for you to be held in detention, but we’re not working hard enough, or we’re not making you enough of a priority to find a place for you to go,” said Bruce Boyer, the director of the Civitas Childlaw Clinic at Loyola University Chicago.

Click here for full article.