Youth Legal System
The Illinois Justice Project (ILJP) has worked to build a youth justice system designed for and equipped to meet the needs of youths and their families, while positively improving their life outcomes and enhancing community safety. ILJP is guided by well-established research: keeping youth out of the criminal legal system, with the support of a caring and knowledgeable adult, is the best way to ensure youth a pathway to a productive adulthood and to keep our communities safe.
Illinois Juvenile Justice Leadership Council
ILJP staffs and facilitates the Illinois Juvenile Justice Leadership Council (JJLC), a quarterly meeting of key Illinois juvenile justice leaders and decision makers, service providers, government, and reform advocates. The council is chaired by Illinois Supreme Court Justices Joy Cunningham and Lisa Holder White, the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice Director Robert Vickery, and Department of Children and Family Services Director Heidi Mueller.
Since it was established, the JJLC has created a workgroup to address priority issues identified by the council members. Currently, there is a workgroup established to monitor the work of the state’s fifteen juvenile detention centers.
Recent topics explored by the JJLC have included programming for emerging adults, youth diversion and deflection from the system and behavioral health for youth in the system. Youth from DJJ youth centers have joined several meetings to give their perspectives on the system.
“Youth have strengths and are capable of positive growth. An effective juvenile justice system uses evidence-based approaches to build on the capacities of youth to learn, change, grow and become contributing members of our communities..”
– Illinois Juvenile Justice Commission
Department of Juvenile Justice
For the past two decades, policymakers from both political parties in Illinois have worked together to reform the juvenile justice system. Illinois enacted policies and programs that have greatly reduced the number of youth held in state prisons and have strengthened aftercare and higher education access for youth leaving incarceration. This work has been guided by developing research on adolescent brain development and by national experts emphasizing the importance of providing ways to change the behaviors of youth in their home communities.
In 2005, ILJP (then part of Chicago Metropolis 2020) along with other advocate groups, worked to separate the Youth Division from the adult functions of the Illinois Department of Corrections and create a new Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice (IDJJ). After about 18 months of policy design and work with the General Assembly and the Governor’s Office, the new IDJJ was created. The daily average population of juvenile prisons has gone from over 2,174 to about 171, two youth prisons have closed, and a transformation of the youth incarceration system was announced in 2020 and is underway. One youth facility will be converted into an educational hub and another will provide specially designed programming for emerging adults between 18-25 who are now in IDOC custody.
Juvenile Detention Reform
There are currently 15 youth detention centers in Illinois, collectively holding more than 5,764 youth pending trial (2023). Many of these facilities are woefully understaffed, in poor physical condition, fail to meet state standards for education or health services, and tend to be punitive rather than rehabilitative. ILJP continues to advocate that all Illinois youth be provided with supportive, rehabilitative services in smaller facilities, rather than face confinement and punishment inside detention centers.
ILJP has worked over several years with partners in Cook County, which operates the largest detention center in the state, to ensure this rehabilitative shift in care for youth. ILJP has served on the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center Advisory Board, which was formed to provide direct feedback and recommendations to the center.
In February 2024, the Circuit Court of Cook County announced it had received a $450,000 grant to plan for a network of community-based rehabilitation centers. These initiatives, designed as alternatives to youth incarceration, are envisioned as a model for other states’ juvenile detention systems. This model prioritizes trauma-informed care and promotes practices that address the root causes of why youth enter the criminal legal system. The goal of programming is to have youth identify their ambitions and goals and to create a system that will support them to reach those goals as they are diverted from or leave the legal system.
Juvenile Redeploy
In 2005, ILJP was instrumental in the creation of Juvenile Redeploy Illinois, a program that provides financial support to local governments offering treatment and services for youth who are at risk of commitment to a state juvenile prison. The program recognizes research findings that non-violent youth are less likely to become further involved in criminal behavior if they receive appropriate services in their home communities to address needs such as mental illness, substance abuse, learning disabilities and unstable living arrangements. Community-based services have also been demonstrated as significantly less expensive than a sentence to corrections.
Since its inception as a pilot program at four sites in 15 Illinois counties, Juvenile Redeploy has expanded to 47 counties and has offered individualized, intensive services to 4,800 youth and their families. It is estimated that 4,000 fewer youth have been committed to Illinois youth prisons, resulting in a cost avoidance of $183 million. The program serves youth between the ages of 13 and 18 with case management, education assistance, counseling and crisis intervention as determined through an individual needs assessment. The program design measures youth success, evaluating positive accomplishments, rather than simply measuring failures or recidivism.
ILJP continues to partner with system decision-makers and advocates for the expansion of program sites statewide, including the recent establishment of a Redeploy program in Cook County.
Thanks to the Redeploy Illinois program, commitments to the Department of Juvenile Justice have resulted in $183 million cost avoidance for the state of Illinois. St. Clair County reduced prison commitments from 86 to 11 in its first year participating in the program.
Cook County Deferred Prosecution
Since 2020, more than 600 youth who are named in juvenile petitions have been successfully diverted from the Cook County Juvenile Court System and into community programming. ILJP and Strengthening Chicago’s Youth launched this program in partnership with the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office, the Office of the Cook County Public Defender and the Juvenile Probation office. The program tackled a major case backlog created by COVID-19 court closures while connecting youth to local social services. Upon completion of program services, cases are dismissed. Chapin Hall is conducting the program evaluation.
Youth Diversion and Support
ILJP was instrumental in pushing for reform of the City of Chicago’s youth arrest diversion program, the Juvenile Intervention and Support System (JISC), because of concerns that it was harming youth.
The formation of an advisory council led to more data transparency, consideration by city officials about how to disband the center, and created an effective diversion system. Collaborating closely with the Chicago Department of Family and Support Services (DFSS), ILJP contributed to the development of the Youth Intervention Pathways (YIP) program. The YIP program represents an approach aimed at implementing more robust deflection and diversion services that are known to improve outcomes for youth who encounter law enforcement.
ILJP also supports DFSS’s broader strategy to minimize youth interaction with the legal system through its Service Coordination and Navigation (SCaN) program, aimed at connecting tailored supportive services to youth and their families with the highest needs.
The design of these programs, their intended outcomes, and rigorous evaluations all reflect what ILJP has worked for over the years – to reduce youth involvement in the criminal legal system and reduce violence at the community level.
Illinois Childhood Trauma Coalition
ILJP, nearly 20 years ago while operating as Metropolis Strategies, recognized the need for a trauma-informed approach to public safety and violence, and helped launch the statewide Illinois Childhood Trauma Coalition, now housed at Lurie Children’s Hospital (soon to be at the Illinois Department of Public Health). This ongoing coalition develops policies, procedures, and training to address the connections between trauma, violence, and youth justice. Work on child trauma has now been incorporated into the Illinois Healing Centered Task Force, chaired by Lt. Governor Juliana Stratton and created by legislation which ILJP helped to design.
Strong, intentional policies have produced a 92% drop in young people confined to Illinois juvenile prisons, from a 1999 average daily population peak of 2,174 to 171 youth in 2023.
Youth Shackling
ILJP worked with the Illinois Supreme Court Rules Committee and other experts and partners to develop the appropriate language that strikes a balance between judicial discretion and the need to limit the unnecessary trauma that shackling of youth causes. Courts still retain the right to shackle a youth if necessary to maintain safety, but that can only be done after holding a hearing to make that determination. The rule went into effect on November 1, 2016.
Expungement
ILJP staff worked closely with the Illinois Juvenile Justice Commission to help publish its landmark study on juvenile records called “Burdened for Life: The Myth of Juvenile Record Confidentiality and Expungement in Illinois.”
The report, spearheaded by several groups, including Northwestern’s Children and Family Justice Center and the Office of the President of Cook County, Toni Preckwinkle, illustrated that juvenile criminal records are widely accessible despite the popular belief that they are confidential. Accessibility and difficulty expunging records have a significant effect on a youth’s ability to secure quality housing, obtain higher education, and become gainfully employed.
ILJP provided policy advice on the development of state legislation that expands and automates expungement opportunities for young people with records. In 2017, the General Assembly passed, and the Governor signed House Bill 3817, now Public Act 100-0285, which makes Illinois a national leader in juvenile expungement.
Resources
Redeploy Illinois seeks to decrease youth incarceration in Department of Juvenile Justice through evidence-based community programs that maintain public safety and promote positive outcomes for youth.
An advisory group responsible for administering federal juvenile justice grants, ensuring compliance with the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, and advising the Governor and General Assembly on matters of juvenile justice.