JJI 2025 SUCCESS

GOVERNOR SIGNED JUVENILE DETENTION REFORM Legislation to gradually Increase the Minimum Age for Detention from 10 to 13, and Create a CHILD FIRST REFORM TASK FORCE

Governor Pritzker has signed juvenile justice reform legislation, the culmination of 14 years of advocacy by the Juvenile Justice Initiative!!!!!

Public Act 104-0449 (Representatives Slaughter and Andrade, Jr.; Senators Peters, Ventura and Collins) will gradually end the practice of detaining young children by raising the minimum age from 10 to 12 beginning on July 1, 2026; and subsequently raising the minimum age to 13 (with a few carve outs for 12 year olds with specified serious offenses) by July 1, 2027 while also creating reporting mechanisms to document gaps in services for this young population.

The number of children impacted by these changes is small - virtually no ten year olds were detained over the past 3 years, and only an average of one/month of eleven year olds were detained anywhere in IL between 2022-2024. But the negative impact on such young children is profound, and this reform gives communities the opportunity to realign programs and services to change the trajectory of these young lives for the better.

 To that end, the bill also creates a Child First Reform Task Force to propose community-based alternatives (including restorative justice) to juvenile detention as well as consider the conditions and administration of individual juvenile detention centers, identify the resources needed to consistently meet the minimum standards set by IDJJ and AOIC, evaluate complaints arising out of juvenile detention centers, and identify best practices to provide detention center care. This comprehensive review is critical (see our report from last Spring on the systemic failures in our state's juvenile detention system - JJI Detention Report )

 Finally, the bill also creates (as of July 1, 2028) a resource program within the IL Department of Juvenile Justice for those adjudicated for nonviolent offenses.

 Thank you to those legislative leaders who have steadfastly supported these reforms over these past 14 years, including the sponsors of Public Act 104-0449, and House Speaker Robyn Gabel. Many thanks also to the broad coalition of individuals and organizations that have stepped up year after year to urge adoption of these critical reforms.

 Read more about the bill:

New Law will keep young children out of detention and address fractured funding and oversight of juvenile facilities. 

 

OTHER LEGISLATION in 2025:

  • LAWYERS FOR ALL CHILDREN DURING INTERROGATION.

  • HUMAN RIGHTS FOR ALL CHILDREN IN ILLINOIS

    • Fact Sheet on SR81 - Children in IL Deserve Full Human Rights

    • Supporters include the Cook County Justice Advisory Council, the Law Office of the Cook County Public Defender, Restore Justice, TASC (Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities), ACLU of Illinois, Illinois Alliance for Reentry and Justice, Illinois Prison Project Action Fund, Unitarian Universalist Prison Ministry of Illinois, Strengthening Chicago’s Youth, Mothers Against Wrongful Convictions, Children’s Best Interest Project, and the James B. Moran Center for Youth Advocacy.

  • EXPAND RESTORATIVE JUSTICE as alternative to juvenile court

REIMAGINE JUVENILE JUSTICE

Click here to view PowerPoint summary of JJI’s 2023 journey to view justice for children in Hamburg, Germany - a system that complies with international protections and rights in the Convention on the Rights of the Child