Chain Reaction: A Youth-driven, Multimedia Storytelling Project Promoting Alternatives to Calling the Police

We are excited to share this new paper by Sarah Brewster and Jane Hereth who were both volunteers with our Chain Reaction, youth-driven participatory action research project. Sarah and Jane have written about the project and their particular experiences with it.

“The authors detail their work with Chain Reaction, a Chicago-based participatory action research and popular education project working to spark conversations about alternatives to calling the police on young people. As volunteers for Chain Reaction, we facilitated a series of workshops an LGBTQ youth center in which youth used digital audio recorders to interview each other about their experiences with police, then curated the stories for a toolkit on alternatives to policing. As the stories consistently reflect, when young people become involved with the police, it often sets off a chain reaction that can result in dropping out of school, losing jobs, and ongoing contact with state systems. The goal of Chain Reaction is to support community-based strategies for stopping these cycles. We explore the theoretical frameworks and the limitations and successes of the project, and offer suggestions for those interested in doing similar projects.”

You can download the paper HERE.

Fewer Youth Incarcerated in Illinois: A New Report

A new report from the National Juvenile Justice Network  and Texas Public Policy Foundation shows that the number of youth confined in state and county facilities nationwide strongly declined in 2011.

“For the 2001-to-2011 ten-year period, the number of confined youth declined by 41% nationwide, or an annual average decline of 4.1% — a dramatic drop since 2000, when a record-setting 108,802 youth were held in detention centers awaiting trial or confined by the courts in juvenile facilities in the U.S. The nationwide decline in 2011 (from 70,793 to 61,423 youth) continues the trend from the previous year (the latest for which data is available), which showed youth confinement was reduced by 32% nationwide from 2001-2010.”

ILLINOIS FACTS

Between 2001`and 2011, Illinois reduced its youth incarceration rate by 41% matching the national number. The number of youth confined between 2010 and 2011 dropped by 5%. 2106 youth were confined in Illinois in 2011. Illinois confined 169 youth for every 100,000 youth in the state’s general population, or 13.3% lower than the U.S. average rate of confinement (195).

Information about the Report

The report, an update to the “Comeback States” report issued by the groups in June, uses data from 2011 (the most recent year for which national data is available) on youth confinement provided by the U.S. Justice Department’s (USDOJ) Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) to track the ongoing national reduction of youth incarceration, as well as the continued progress of the nine states leading the nation on implementing meaningful juvenile justice reforms resulting in the reduction of youth in confinement in their states. These comeback states include: California, Connecticut, Illinois, Ohio, New York, Mississippi, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin.

New Report Ranks the Rate of Disconnected Youth in the U.S.

Measure of America released a report (PDF) this week that “that ranks the 25 most populous U.S. metro areas by the share of young adults between the ages of 16 and 24 who are neither working nor in school.” The report titled “Halve the Gap by 2030: Youth Disconnection in America’s Cities” was co-authored by Sarah Burd-Sharps and Kristen Lewis.

According to the report, nearly 6 million young people (or 1 in 7) are disconnected. According to the study:

“Disconnected youth are people between the ages of 16 and 24 who are neither in school nor working. Young people in this age range who are working or in school part-time or who are in the military are not considered disconnected. Youth disconnection rates in this report are calculated by Measure of America using employment and enrollment data from the 2011 American Community Survey (ACS) of the US Census Bureau.”

Some of the key national findings from the study are as follows:

· More than one in every seven young people in America — 5.8 million teens and young adults between the ages of 16 and 24— is unemployed and not enrolled in school.

· The lowest rates of youth disconnection among the 25 most populated cities are found in Boston (9.2 percent), Minneapolis (9.5 percent), and Washington, DC (11.3 percent).

· The highest rates of youth disconnection among the 25 most populated cities are found in San Bernardino (18.8 percent), Detroit (17.4 percent), and Charlotte (17.3 percent).

· The greatest differences in youth disconnection rates are found within cities as opposed to between cities. In Chicago, New York, and Detroit, gaps of approximately 30 percentage points separate neighborhoods within the same city.

· Major differences in youth disconnection rates also exist based on race and ethnicity. In Pittsburgh and St. Louis, one in every four African American youths is disconnected, compared to one in every ten white youths. Nationwide, African Americans are about three times as likely as Asian Americans and twice as likely as whites to be disconnected in their teens and early twenties.

Some of the findings specific to the Chicago metro area are as follows:
[Please note that the Chicago metro area includes: Cook, DeKalb, DuPage,
Grundy, Kane, Kendall, McHenry, Will, and Lake Counties in Illinois;
Jasper, Lake, Newton, and Porter Counties in Indiana; and Kenosha
County in Wisconsin.]

. The rate of youth disconnection in Chicago is 14.1 percent ranking 9th best
among the 25 most populated cities. That’s a total of 166,047 young people.
In Chicago, 24.9% of African American youth 16 to 24 is disconnected while 15.6% of Latino youth and 9.2% of white youth are.

. Chicago registers a 15.7 percentage point gap between whites and African
Americans, the third-largest gap among all of the cities.

. In Chicago, Lake View and Lincoln Park have a youth disconnection rate of 2.9%, compared to South Lawndale and the Lower West Side with a rate of 33.2%.

. In Chicago, youth disconnection rates among the major racial and ethnic groups differ considerably from national averages. Both Latinos and whites in Chicago are more likely to have positive outcomes in terms of youth connection than their national counterparts. On the other hand, African Americans in Chicago have worse outcomes than African Americans nationally. Chicago African Americans have the third highest rate of disconnection after Detroit and Philadelphia. One in four African Americans is disconnected, more than two and a half times higher than the rate of their white neighbors. Latinos are at the other end of the spectrum. Only San Francisco and Washington, DC have better outcomes for Latinos. As a result of these extremes, Chicago has one of the highest gaps by race and ethnicity. Nearly sixteen percentage points separate African Americans and whites, the third highest gap after New York and Philadelphia.

.

New Paper: Alternatives to Youth Incarceration in Chicago

“WE’RE IN IT FOR THE LONG HAUL:”
ALTERNATIVES TO INCARCERATION FOR YOUTH IN CONFLICT WITH THE LAW

There is an urgent need to find constructive ways to respond to young people in conflict with the law. Research compellingly demonstrates that youth placed in juvenile detention centers compared to alternative interventions are much more likely to later spend significant time in prison (Aizer and Doyle, 2013). Juvenile and adult incarceration both create exorbitant financial and social costs (Petteruti, Velázquez, and Walsh, 2009). Incarceration of juveniles is harmful to young peoples’ development, education, families, communities, and their current and future socioeconomic status (Majd, 2011; Bickel, 2010). Furthermore, incarcerating youth is not effective at enhancing public safety (Butts & Evans, 2011; Petteruti, Velázquez, & Walsh, 2009).

In Chicago, a group of individuals and organizations are working to address the needs of young people who others have mostly given up on. Behind the headlines of gang violence, shootings, and despair, there is an untold and unheralded story of perseverance, tenacity, and hope in communities across the city. Every single day, there are individuals representing various community-based organizations in Chicago who are called to meet the needs of youth in conflict with the law. They do so with shockingly few resources, mostly out of the public eye, and always with a determination that all young people deserve love and support.

In the United States, over 2.2 million people are incarcerated in prisons and jails. To some, the country has become a “Prison Nation.” Young people have not escaped the historical trend of increasing criminalization. As a way to decrease the numbers of people behind bars, states have turned to alternatives to incarceration.

Today, Project NIA is pleased to release a paper written by Michelle VanNatta and Mariame Kaba which specifically addresses five programs in Chicago that provide alternatives to incarceration for young people charged with or convicted of crimes. Included in this exploration are issues of cost, effectiveness, capacity, and the needs of youth and organizations moving forward.

At their core, the interventions and programs that are highlighted in this paper privilege relationship-building above everything else. This will not be satisfying for those who seek a quick-fix to address the needs of youth in conflict with the law. The organizations and programs featured define success based on whether they have been able to connect young people with a person who will walk with them through a perilous road littered with pitfalls and danger.

These aren’t programs that operate from 9 to 5 p.m. on Mondays through Fridays. The staff don’t necessarily hold advanced degrees and most are paid at near minimum wage rates. When asked about their program budgets, most directors smile while suggesting that they made due with very limited funds. Most of the programs are housed in and/or run by faith-based institutions like churches.

In the end, we hope that those who read the paper will come away with a better understanding of the challenges and the promise of current “alternative to incarceration” programs in Chicago. As the value of these programs becomes clear, we also hope that funders and community members will direct more resources to them.

The paper can be downloaded HERE (PDF).

Special thanks to Matt DeMateo, Father Dave Kelly, Heidi Mueller, Cliff Nellis, Ethan Ucker for taking the time to talk with us about their work. Thanks also to our friend Caitlin Seidler for donating her time to design the paper.

Please direct any questions or comments about this paper to Michelle VanNatta and Mariame Kaba at projectnia@hotmail.com.

Also, Join us on September 26th for an event that addresses the issues raised in this paper. Space is very limited. We will not be accepting any walk-ins. You must pre-register. Information is HERE.

Finally, a few months ago, Leah Varjacques created a video story featuring two of the programs featured in the paper: Circles & Ciphers and Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation.

restoring hope from Leah Varjacques on Vimeo.

A Comeback for Kids: Illinois a National Leader in Reducing Number of Youth in Confinement

New national report (PDF) showcases how state improved conditions for kids and communities through key juvenile justice policy reforms

CHICAGO – The number of youth confined in Illinois state and county facilities (public and private) declined by 38 percent from 2001 to 2010, according to a new report, “Comeback States,” released today by the National Juvenile Justice Network (NJJN) and the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Center for Effective Justice (TPPF).

The report found that youth confinement in public facilities in Illinois peaked at 3,074, in 2000, up from 1,534 in 1985. By 2010, however, Illinois’ confined youth population was reduced to 1,949 in public facilities, and the state’s youth incarceration rate overall declined to 119 confined youth for every 100,000 young people (age 10-to-16 years old) in the state’s population.

“In Illinois, there is a growing recognition that incarcerating children must be a last resort chosen only after all less restrictive options have been exhausted,” said Elizabeth Clarke, President of the Juvenile Justice Initiative, a member of NJJN. “Local leaders know that kids coming out of prison too often return to prison and that rehabilitation services delivered in their home communities are much more effective and cost less than the nearly $90,000 annual cost of sending a child to a state prison.”

For youth being held in detention centers awaiting trial or incarcerated in juvenile facilities, this is a critical change. Youth who are locked up are separated from their families, many witness violence, and struggle when they get out, trying to complete high school, get jobs or go to college. Aside from the human toll, the financial costs of maintaining large secure facilities have also made it critical to rethink juvenile justice in every community.

For youth being held in detention centers awaiting trial or incarcerated in juvenile facilities, this is a critical change. Youth who are locked up are separated from their families, many witness violence, and struggle when they get out, trying to complete high school, get jobs or go to college. Aside from the human toll, the financial costs of maintaining large secure facilities have also made it critical to rethink juvenile justice in every community.

The report argues that the turnaround can be broadened by changes to state policy like those made in the comeback states that reflected declines in youth crime, new understandings of the teenage brain and adolescent development, availability of less costly, evidence-based alternatives to incarceration, and constrained state budgets. These policy reforms include:

• Increasing the availability of evidence-based alternatives to confinement;
• Requiring intake procedures that reduce the use of detention facilities;
• Closing or downsizing youth confinement facilities;
• Reducing schools’ overreliance on the justice system to address discipline issues;
• Disallowing incarceration for minor offenses; and
• Restructuring juvenile justice responsibilities and finances among states and counties.

NJJN and TPPF identified these six policies as key measures of positive reform – five of which were adopted by Illinois – because they all encourage reduced reliance on detention and incarceration across the U.S.

“The policy reforms adopted by these Comeback States reflect a new approach to addressing youth incarceration in the nation,” said Marc Levin, Director of the Center for Effective Justice at TPPF. “States should continue to look to innovative policy changes that emphasize rehabilitation over youth incarceration in order to create safer communities while also reducing the huge societal and economic costs of youth confinement.”

The Comeback States highlighted in the report were selected because they adopted at least two-thirds of the policy changes the report focused on, exceeded the national-average reduction in youth confinement between 2001 and 2010, and experienced a decline in youth arrests during the same period. States that met this threshold included: California, Connecticut, Illinois, Ohio, New York, Mississippi, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin.

In addition to the advances made in these states, the United States also saw remarkable improvement in reducing youth confinement overall. According to the report, the number of confined American youth reached a record 108,802 in 2000, driven by an increase in youth arrests, public concern regarding youth crime, and tough state policies favoring incarceration. In the decade that followed, however, youth confinement in U.S. dropped by 39 percent – a dramatic turnaround that virtually erased the spike in youth incarceration that began in the 1985 and peaked in 2000.

“States have made strides in changing their policies so that youth are held accountable in age appropriate ways, but there is more work to be done,” said Sarah Bryer, Director of NJJN. “It is critical that we build upon the success seen over the past twenty years and make every effort possible to adopt meaningful reforms that reduce youth confinement and strengthen our communities.”

Despite the turnaround seen nationwide and in the Comeback States, NJJN and TPPF caution that the high cost of youth incarceration to taxpayers and society, the infrequent use of cost-effective alternatives to youth incarceration, and the high level of youth confined for non-serious offenses, remain a serious cause of concern.

In Illinois, juvenile justice groups aren’t resting on their laurels either.

“Although Illinois is on the right track, we have more work to do to ensure that every child in conflict with the law has access to community based alternatives through programs like Redeploy Illinois, to keep low-level offenders out of prison,” added Clarke. “And we must work to ensure that those few youngsters removed from home are safe and receive the mental health counseling, education and other services that will give them an opportunity to mature into responsible adults.”

Two pieces of recently passed legislation awaiting Governor Quinn’s signature would do much to keep this comeback going and continue the positive trend of de-incarceration in the state by raising the juvenile jurisdiction age for felonies to 17 and allowing Cook County (which sends the largest number of kids to state juvenile prisons) to begin a Redeploy Illinois program in a section of the county, such as a specific police district or group of police districts. Redeploy Illinois provides funding for counseling and other direct services to young offenders, and participating counties agree in exchange to a 25 percent reduction in the number of juveniles committed to state prisons over a three year baseline. The program also ensures transparency and accountability through a statutorily required annual report and oversight board.

The development of this report was supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation through a grant to Public Interest Projects and other organizations committed to improving outcomes for kids and communities.

Illinois Raise the Age Report…

From the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange:

The Illinois Juvenile Justice Commission (IJJC) recently released a report urging state policymakers to reclassify 17-year-olds as juveniles within the state’s legal system.

While a 2010 General Assembly act shifted the state’s 17-year-old misdemeanants to juvenile court jurisdictions, young people of the same age who commit felonies are automatically transferred to Illinois’ adult system.

“To promote a juvenile justice system focused on public safety, youth rehabilitation, fairness and fiscal responsibility,” the report reads, “Illinois should immediately adopt legislation expanding the age of juvenile court jurisdiction to include 17-year-olds charged with felonies.”

The IJJC suggested the state alter its policies and raise the adult court jurisdictional age to 18 for both misdemeanor and felony offenses.

Read more here.

Juvenile Justice Initiative: Juvenile Drug Arrests in CY2011- Disproportionate Minority Contact

JJI Policy Research Analyst Kanako Ishida studied the disproportionate representation of minorities in the juvenile justice system in Illinois in calendar year 2011 by analyzing data from Criminal History Record Information.

Among her findings:

• African American youth were over represented at the point of arrests at a level triple their representation in the general youth population.

• Although only thirty nine percent of youth (up to 17 years of age) are in Cook County, sixty four percent of arrests came from Cook County in CY2011.

• Cook County accounted for 69 percent of overall Illinois drug offense arrests.

• African American youth were over represented in drug arrests at a level double their representation in Cook County youth population.

• Fifty two percent of African American youth arrested for drug offense in Cook County was arrested for felonies while only nine percent of white youth were arrested for felonies.

Click here to read the full report.

 

Community Justice Concept Paper by Cook County Juvenile Justice Task Force

The Cook County Juvenile Justice Task Force has just published an excellent new concept paper about closing the CCJTDC and reinvesting the funds into trauma informed and restorative community-based programming instead. The full paper can be downloaded HERE (PDF). Below is the executive summary of the paper.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Who has the power to make neighborhoods safe? In recent decades, American society has looked almost exclusively to the criminal justice system to improve neighborhood safety outcomes. Yet as violence in Cook County continues to rise, it is increasingly obvious that the criminal justice system is only a part of the answer. We desperately need a new paradigm for community and systems partnerships around peacemaking, violence prevention, and family supports. At the same time, we need to confront the racial and economic injustices that perpetuate youth violence in our county, injustices that are maintained in part through our juvenile justice system.

In Chicago especially, we need to support and develop community solutions that can put an end to the city’s longstanding youth violence epidemic. While our current juvenile justice system is full of remarkable professionals, the system itself is structurally incapable of dramatically reducing youth violence. When we acknowledge this structural limitation, many questions arise- How can we better share responsibility for neighborhood safety? What are best practices for reducing youth crime through true accountability and rehabilitation? How can we effectively reinvest our resources in those communities where youth violence is concentrated?

Focused exclusively on Cook County’s juvenile justice system, this concept paper offers a starting place for answering these questions. Written by the Cook County Juvenile Justice Task Force, it calls upon all available leaders to help usher in a fundamental shift in the ways we protect our communities, support our families, and guide our young people in trouble with the law. Rather than a centralized, systems-based approach focused almost exclusively on punishment, the paper calls for a restorative, neighborhood-based model that is focused on strengthening the ability of communities to protect and nurture themselves, thereby enhancing the violence prevention effects of our juvenile justice resources.

This concept paper advances three important claims that are outside the norm of most juvenile justice debates. First, it argues that the shift to neighborhood-based juvenile justice must be fully funded. Government bodies cannot look at community solutions simply as a cost savings measure. If they do, they are endangering their constituents and neglecting the visionary possibilities of our era. Visionary leadership requires reinvesting our juvenile justice resources into those communities with the greatest need. Any attempt to improve juvenile justice outcomes without making these robust, targeted reinvestments in our young people is destined to fail.

Second, this paper calls for dealing directly with both the systemic racism and the individual traumas that underlie so much of the violence we see in our city. Though often invisible, both racism and trauma are incredibly present in our social world, pervading homes and communities in ways that we rarely discuss, let alone address. As almost any experienced youth outreach worker will attest, young people who start hustling on the streets often do so to avoid abusive situations in their homes. Yet their search for safety frequently exposes them to gang recruitment and other forms of street violence, a fact that points to complex cycles of intergenerational trauma that are reinforced by inequitable neighborhood conditions. Though common sense to many frontline workers, this basic connection between the home, the street, and the neighborhood is almost never made in our broader public safety efforts. In order to reverse this trend, the paper calls for the development of holistic responses to widespread trauma and its wider spread effects, alongside a commitment to improving neighborhood conditions.

Finally, this paper outlines a proposal for community-driven restorative justice approaches to youth crime and conflict. The ‘Restorative Justice Hub’ model that we advance is intended to reawaken our programmatic imagination, enhancing the ways we support our most isolated young people while strengthening rather than further disenfranchising our communities.

Importantly, this model is directly informed by the latest science on childhood trauma and is designed as a strategy for helping people to move beyond the effects of adverse childhood experiences, guiding them towards sustainable healing and growth. Furthermore, the model of Restorative Hubs relies upon the maintenance and continued development of community-based supports for all of our youth, not just those who are easiest to serve through traditional programs.

Taken together, these three tenets can serve as the foundation for a neighborhood-based juvenile justice paradigm that enables communities and systems to work together on improving public safety outcomes. Each of these tenets builds on one another and all three are essential pillars of reducing youth violence and helping young people to claim their full potential. By raising these pillars up – creating fully-funded, trauma-informed, restorative community solutions to youth crime – Cook County will be at the cutting edge of juvenile justice in the United States and will serve as a powerful exemplar for other jurisdictions to follow. Most critically, Cook County cannot afford to delay these fundamental reforms any longer. Our public safety depends on it.

New Report About Juvenile Recidivism in Illinois

ICJIA has published a new report titled “JUVENILE RECIDIVISM IN ILLINOIS: EXPLORING YOUTH RE-ARREST AND RE-INCARCERATION.” You can download it as a PDF HERE.

Some of the key findings from the report include from an article by Lindsy Bostwick:

Juvenile incarceration rates have decreased over the past decade in the United States (Sickmund, et al., 2010). In Illinois, between state fiscal years 2000 and 2010, total admissions to the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice(IDJJ) dropped 19 percent, to 2,162. In addition, the number of youth admitted to IDJJ for a new sentence (as opposed to a technical violation of parole) fell 34 percent. Despite these promising reductions in youth incarceration, budgetary implications of these incarcerations are significant in a tough economy. Further, the human cost of incarceration is a constant concern within the criminal justice community and society.

IDJJ releases more than 2,400 youth back into the community each year and little is known about their post-release offending rates, or other characteristics. The Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority recently examined populations of youths released from IDJJ facilities between state fiscal years 2005 and 2007. The resulting reports present demographic and incarceration offense information and information on releasees’ prior arrests and incarcerations. The study further tracked offender re-arrests and re-incarcerations for up to five years following their release, in both juvenile and adult facilities.

The study revealed that the average age of a youth at release was almost 17 years old, and most youth were serving sentences for property offenses (43 percent) or offenses against a person (31 percent). Youth examined had an average of five prior arrests, and 79 percent had at least one prior arrest for a violent offense. Youth released after serving sentences for drug offenses had the highest average number of prior arrests. Less than one-quarter of youth released had previously been incarcerated.

Eighty-six percent of youth in the study were re-arrested within three years of release. Youth released after serving sentences for sex offenses were the least likely to be re-arrested. Illinois re-arrest rates were similar to those reported in California and Florida, but were higher than in New York and Texas. Seventy percent of youth were re-incarcerated during the study period. Forty-one percent of youth were incarcerated at least once for a new offense and 53 percent of youth were re-incarcerated at least once for a technical violation of parole.

More detailed information regarding these recidivism measures are included in the report, but it is worth noting that measuring recidivism is a complicated and even controversial task. Regardless of how one chooses to define it, the possibility remains that errors may either overestimate or underestimate true re-offending behavior. Further, recidivism must be understood within the context of age, namely that offending behavior is highest among adolescents and young adults, and typically declines as one ages (Blumstein & Cohen, 1987).

Regardless of the complications and controversy surrounding juvenile recidivism, it is clear that this is a pressing issue and more information is necessary. Further, while recidivism has significant financial implications for state correctional systems, it is hard to overlook the personal effect incarceration, and repeated incarceration, has on these young offenders.

New Report: Rogers Park Juvenile Justice Snapshot 2010

Community members need timely and accessible information about how youth are faring in their neighborhoods.  Such data provides a platform for advocacy and organizing to redress social problems.  Our first Rogers Park Juvenile Justice Data Snapshot was released in November 2010 and mostly included data from 2009.

Today, we are pleased to release our second Rogers Park Juvenile Justice Snapshot which primarily relies on 2010 data to describe the plight of youth in conflict with the law in our community.  We believe this publication will provide our local educators, policymakers, parents, and community members with a deeper understanding of the issues facing Rogers Park youth.

We hope that our community will join us as we mobilize to dramatically decrease the arrest, detention, and general juvenile justice system involvement of our young people.

Thanks go out to John Bentley, Andrew Fernandez, Cait Patterson, and Jennifer Welch for their help with data collection. Special thanks to Chez Rumpf and others at the Center for Urban Research and Learning for their support in creating this report!

Key findings from the report include:

1. According the Chicago Police Department (CPD), there were 708 total arrests of youth 17 and under in 2010 in the 24th district. The 24th district had the seventeenth highest number of juvenile arrests in 2010. In 2010, 71 arrests happened on public school grounds in the 24th district.

2. In Chicago, more youth are arrested for misdemeanors than felony crimes. The same is true in the 24th district where the top three misdemeanor offenses in 2010 were: miscellaneous non-index offenses, drug abuse violations, and simple battery.

3. In 2010, detectives in the 24th district issued 21 formal station adjustments and 171 informal station adjustments for a total of 192 station adjustments.

4. Based on data from the Juvenile Probation and Court Services Department, in 2010, there were 19,726 court referrals in Cook County. In the 24th district, 449 juveniles were referred by law enforcement to the Office of the State’s Attorney in 2010.

5. The clear majority of juveniles (61%) referred to the State’s Attorney from detectives in the 24th district were 16 and 17 years old.

6. Based on data from the Juvenile Probation and Court Services Department, in 2010, 7,375 juvenile petitions filed in the Circuit Court of Cook County. In the 24th district, the Office of the State’s Attorney filed 165 delinquency petitions with the court in 2010.

7. There were 49 juveniles with active formal supervision/probation cases in 2010 and 52 juveniles with informal supervision/probation cases in the 24th district. 78% of those with active formal supervision/probation cases were African-American and 86% were male. The majority of these youth (70) were 15 and 16 years old.

8. Based on Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center (CCJTDC) data, there were 44 admissions from the 60626 zip code and 21 admissions from the 60645 zip code from January through August 2011. This means that Rogers Park youth accounted for an insignificant percentage of total admissions to the detention center over that time period.

9. Data was not specifically available for youth committed to the Department of Juvenile Justice (youth prisons) from the 24th district. We were however able to secure data from the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority (ICJIA) about Rogers Park youth who were admitted to parole in FY11. An ICJIA analysis shows that 11 Rogers Park youth were admitted to parole in FY11.