Juvenile Justice

Ogle County State’s Attorney John B. “Ben” Roe is making a name for himself  by keeping people out of prison, rather than for “throwing the book at them.” Roe and a  team of professionals funded in part by the MacArthur Foundation of Chicago are  diverting hundreds of troubled juveniles from the court system. And they say it’s paying  off in reduced crime and lower numbers in “the system” of courts, jails, and scary  juvenile prisons. 

The idealistic 35-year-old Roe is a former staffer at a program for troubled youth  in Ogle County, south of Rockford. He followed that job with a stint as an assistant  prosecuting attorney, whose responsibilities included juveniles, where the first time Roe  saw a kid was in court—and his job was to put the youngster away. It made no sense to  Roe. 

“Studies show,” says Roe, “that 75 percent of youngsters who have spent time in  a juvenile detention facility will end up back in prison later in life.” 

Roe, veteran probation officer Greg Martin and others on a county juvenile justice  council start with the schools to identify and work with youngsters at-risk of getting into  trouble.  

When a youngster does commit vandalism, drug offenses or whatever, the council  swings into further action. The simple and easy path would be to charge the youngster  with a felony (damage over $300 constitutes a felony). Ogle County avoids the easy path.

Instead, every juvenile case reported by police is assessed promptly by mental  health and community specialists. And if, for example, diversion from the court system is seen as the best course in a vandalism case, the ideal first step in the diversion process is victim-offender counseling. 

“There is an unbelievable dynamic here,” says Roe, “as the youngster must  confront face-to-face the victim of his or her damaging actions.” 

“You know how much this cost me?” asks the victim of the youngster. “Why  me?” The youngster is almost always without an answer. 

After the session, a mediator works out a proposal, which might entail cleaning up  the damage, doing public service work, or making monetary restitution. If a youngster completes the agreed upon tasks in the allotted time, the case is  closed, and at age 17 the information about the offense is automatically expunged from  court records. (Few realize that even before a case reaches court, the police report  information about arrest and fingerprinting becomes part of a court record, and can pop  up years later when a person seeks a job, unless expunged.) 

Other tools available to the juvenile justice council include substance abuse  treatment; “community impact panels,” where a range of community leaders meet with  offenders, and cognitive behavior groups, in which a therapist reviews with the offender  the steps he or she went through prior to committing the offense.  

Even in cases that are not diverted from the court system, a prompt assessment of  the offender is conducted; the therapist is even present at the arraignment in court.  Through a memorandum of understanding, the prosecutor’s office agrees not to use  information elicited in the assessment. And indeed, public defenders often learn valuable information about their client that they would not otherwise have. Sometimes the  assessment results in dismissal of the case, directing it instead to the diversion process. At other times, court supervision is recommended rather than probation, which  keeps the youngster from becoming a ward of the court and labeled a delinquent. Of 500 police contacts with minors in Ogle County since 2008, 70 percent have  been diverted out of court and only 5 percent of those kids have been re-arrested. Prior to  that, much higher percentages of cases went to the court system and re-arrests were  higher as well, says Roe, although no one kept such data before 2008. Roe notes that diversion costs less than $400 per youngster, whereas the figure is  more than $1,200 for those going through the court system. 

“We call is being smart, not soft, on crime,” Roe says. 

The MacArthur Foundation provides funding, for example, for training of  probation officers on functional family therapy. A probation officer can take the intensive  training and go into a home and work with the whole family, which is often where a big  part of the problem lies. 

But can a program that appears to work in a rural county of 55,000 people with a  strong sense of community be replicated on the mean streets of an urban setting?  Roe thinks so. He points to New York City, where he believes similar concepts  have been applied effectively. 

The goal of the MacArthur Foundation is to see the models being developed in  Ogle County, New York City and other sites around the country replicated widely. Will  other counties have the resources and the community support to buy into diversion away from the courts for troubled teens? Ben Roe and his team are placing much effort, and  MacArthur is betting big dollars that the model will sell elsewhere.