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Sausage-making can be a slow process

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Illinois

* It’s mind-boggling that accused adults have this right and kids don’t…

God forbid your teenage son is arrested in Illinois on the Friday before a three-day holiday weekend.

Even for an offense as minor as retail theft, as a juvenile he could sit locked up all weekend, and not stand before a judge to determine if he deserves to be charged or detained until the following Tuesday.

Across Illinois, Juvenile Courts are closed on weekends and holidays. But the courts are open for adults 365 days a year. They generally get hearings within 24 hours of arrest.

That discrepancy is expected to end in Cook County next month, thanks to a federal court suit filed by four parents and some tough talk from U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Durkin. Under an agreement being worked out in that case, Cook County is expected to start holding detention hearings for juveniles within 24 hours of arrest.

That’s a change that should be established statewide. Teens are far more vulnerable – and redeemable – than adults. They should be entitled to post-arrest court hearings in every county in the same time frame granted adults, if not sooner.

A bill to address this issue passed the House in April, but hasn’t yet been called in the Senate.

* Meanwhile, Gov. Rauner pushed a bill last week which passed the Senate in April and hasn’t yet been called in the House…

Gov. Bruce Rauner is pushing a bill that would provide released convicts with state identification cards in an effort to reduce rates of prison returnees.

The bill, which was passed unanimously through the Illinois Senate in April, aims to reduce recidivism, or relapse in criminal behavior or imprisonment. The bill has bipartisan support, Rauner said. Having a state ID will help former convicts obtain a bank account, an apartment lease or a cell phone, he said.

“In order to combat recidivism we need to remove some of the hurdles offenders face when they are released from a detention facility and begin to re-integrate into society,” Rauner said in a news release. “In this case, it’s the simple step of providing an offender with a state ID.”

The bill requires the State Department to issue an ID to any prisoner upon release if they present a birth certificate, a social security card and two proofs of address. For those without those documents, the Department will issue an ID that is valid for 90 days if the prisoner is able to present a verified document from the Department of Corrections or Juvenile Justice with their name, birth date, social security number and proof of address.

But that bill has some problems…

The bill is not yet perfect, Flowers said, because it implies the [Secretary of State] has employees in correction centers who are able to give the prisoners IDs when they are released.

posted by Rich Miller
Monday, Oct 3, 16 @ 1:31 pm

Comments

I can relate.

90 day Temp tag on a new car expired last Saturday.

Heck of a way to run a Railroad! /s

Comment by WhoKnew Monday, Oct 3, 16 @ 1:57 pm
re: the Cook County issue - Another reason the Cook County judicial system is a mess and deserved new leadership.

Comment by Not It Monday, Oct 3, 16 @ 3:34 pm
Apparently the Rauner super stars missed the criminal justice class where they talk about what causes recidivism. Spoiler alert-it has nothing to do with identification. That is hands down the dumbest piece of legislation I have heard of. And this is the state that brought us the legislation making sweet corn the official state vegetable.

Comment by WIU-LEJA Monday, Oct 3, 16 @ 6:35 pm