NCJ Number
177525
Journal
Illinois Bar Journal Volume: 87 Issue: 3 Dated: March 1999 Pages: 152-159
Date Published
1999
Length
8 pages
Annotation
The Illinois Juvenile Court Act of 1998 is discussed with respect to its goals and its new provisions regarding the arrest, detention, trial, and sentencing of juvenile offenders.
Abstract
The reform legislation attempts to address the reality of increasingly younger children committing more and more violent crimes. Therefore, it strives to take a balanced approach to juvenile crime by both stiffening penalties for some juvenile offenders while emphasizing crime prevention through early intervention programs and increased involvement by parents, local community leaders, and victims in juvenile proceedings. Changes in terminology include the use of the term trials instead of adjudicatory hearings and the use of the term arrest instead of taken into custody. Innovative crime prevention and early intervention programs include the establishment of county juvenile justice councils, community mediation programs, and teen court programs. The court also has discretion to order the parents, guardian, or legal custodian of the minor to take certain actions, refrain from certain actions, or both, as part of the juvenile's sentence. Other changes focus on jurisdiction, arrest, non-secure custody or detention, the setting of the detention hearing, procedural changes, the trial, sentencing, violent and habitual juvenile offenders, and extended-jurisdiction juvenile prosecutions. Footnotes