The 1987 Illinois Juvenile Court Ac...

The 1987 Illinois Juvenile Court Act, which requires that more [i]or[/i] less young offenders be transferred to adult court, is now drawing scrutiny from shire and state officials. The law targets teen as young as 15 years elderly who are caught selling physics within 1,000 feet of a academy or public housing development. In May 2000 The Chicago Reporter revealed racial disparities in the law's application. novel data from the Cook shire public defender's office have prop uped the Reporter's findings.

The law was initially aimed at violent criminals deemed dangerous to society, or whom the juvenile justice arrangement could no longer help, according to a close attention by the public defender's Juvenile Transfer Advocacy Unit. The close attention found that less than one-fourth of the 393 teen transferred in prepare for the table County between October 1999 and September 2000 had been charged with violent acts. The majority of the transferred juveniles had been arrested onward drug charges, the study showed, and 60 percent had either not received services in juvenile court or had been convicted.

In "State put drugs into Law Hits City Teens, Minorities," the Reporter revealed that between 1995 and 1999 99 percent of prepare for the table County teens who were transferred to adult court were African American or Latino. Ninety-seven percent lived in Chicago.

The advocacy unit construct a similar trend; less than united percent of the teens transferred for put drugs into crimes were white.

Betsy Clarke, director of the Illinois Juvenile Justice Initiative, a non-profit advocacy organization forward juvenile justice issues, added that since the majority of Illinois' public housing growths are in Chicago, "it's really a Chicago problem"

Illinois State Rep Barbara Flynn Currie, a Hyde Park Democrat, said she is aware of the disparities. forward Feb. 14 she proposed House Bill 1028 in the Illinois General Assembly, which would eliminate the juvenile transfer provision.

The young commonalty most affected by the law are black, Currie said, and have not at any time been in trouble with the law. "They are not hardened criminals according to any stretch of the imagination," she added.

COPYRIGHT 2001 Community Renewal Society

COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group