Work highlights

Examples of Models for Change-supported activities underway in Illinois

Strengthening community-based alternatives
Models for Change funding for five “community-based alternative” pilot sites around Illinois has helped strengthen local planning, assess community needs, and develop new automated information capacity to manage local responses to delinquency. In Cook, DuPage and Peoria Counties, efforts are focusing on reducing the unnecessary detention of juveniles, especially those who would be better handled in the child welfare or mental health systems, through diversion. In Ogle County and the 2nd Judicial District (a largely rural 12-county area in the southern part of the state), the focus of the work is on supporting and strengthening local leadership bodies or Juvenile Justice Councils.
Creation of Illinois Judicial Supervision Watch Database (JWatch)
Originally created as part of the Models for Change pilot project in the largely rural 2nd Judicial Circuit, JWatch is now available free to local jurisdictions all over Illinois. The database helps local courts and probation departments manage and keep track of individual youth and system outcomes.

Identifying facts, gaps and best-practices for reducing DMC
Models for Change partners have produced informational literature presenting the known facts on DMC in the state’s juvenile justice system, pointing out some missing pieces in the statistical picture and the need to fill them in with better data collection and reporting practices, and describing cost-effective approaches that have reduced DMC in other jurisdictions.
Advocating for reforms of laws that overwhelmingly affect minority youth
For example, the successful elimination of the automatic transfer law for low-level drug offenders has been shown to have resulted in the retention of hundreds of youth of color in the juvenile rather than adult system.
Educating policymakers and the public on the issue of DMC

Transition Planning for the Department of Juvenile Justice
Illinois also recently created a new Department of Juvenile Justice independent of adult corrections—another reform strongly advocated by Models for Change grantee organizations. Grantees participated in planning for the new Department, and will offer technical assistance and training to its staff.

Promotion of “Redeploy Illinois”
An innovative state law to cut the commitment of youth to state facilities by changing fiscal incentives to encourage communities to treat and rehabilitate their youth in community based settings is being promoted and expanded by Models for Change grantees and partners.
Advocating for changes to transfer laws
Illinois recently enacted bipartisan legislation rolling back an automatic transfer law applicable to youth accused of certain drug offenses. Models for Change grantees were involved in researching, testifying at legislative hearings, and publicly advocating for this change, and are currently engaged in similar public education and advocacy efforts aimed at the elimination of automatic transfer laws that deny accused juveniles the benefit of individualized consideration, and/or their replacement with more flexible transfer and sentencing mechanisms.
Advocating for changes to juvenile court jurisdiction
Models for Change grantees and partners successfully advocated for legislation that changes the state’s upper age of juvenile court jurisdiction to include 17-year-olds charged with misdemeanors, thereby joining 38 other states and the federal government in recognizing that the juvenile justice system is more effective than the adult criminal system in effectively intervening with young people in conflict with the law.

Assessing and reforming the state's juvenile indigent defense systems
A statewide Models for Change assessment of the quality of attorney representation in delinquency proceedings was recently completed. Results of the assessment are being used to design and target professional training for attorneys and other legal decision-makers, and to build support for a more stable and better resourced juvenile defender system in Illinois.

Organizing "Connecting the Pathways” conferences
Models for Change partnered with Illinois juvenile justice leaders to launch a series of conferences to foster collaborations and the spread of practical reform knowledge and strategies across Illinois, among those working within Models for Change and in other key reform efforts such as the Illinois Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI), Redeploy Illinois, DMC projects of the Illinois Juvenile Justice Commission, and Illinois Balance and Restorative Justice projects.

Teams from Illinois participate in the following Models for Change Action Networks:

As part of the Models for Change Research Initiative, Illinois sites are involved in the following studies: