JJI Reports

ISSUE BRIEF - Keeping the Promise of Juvenile Court - The Failed Experiment of Trying and Sentencing Children in Adult Court Sept. 2025

Summary of Issue Brief - Why Adult Trial of Children Fails

The Urgent Need for a Systemic Overhaul of the Broken Juvenile Detention System in Illinois, Dec. 2024

 Children’s Experience with Virtual Court, Dec. 2021

 Pretrial Detention of Children During a Pandemic, Reforms that Protect Children After Trial not in place for Children Before Trial – Findings and Implications for Reform, Feb. 2021

 Transfer of Children to Adult Court – Review of Outcomes from 2015 Transfer Reforms. May, 2020

 Reimagine Juvenile Detention in Illinois

 Detention of Juveniles in Illinois: Recommendations to Right-Size Detention through Reforms and Fiscal Incentives to Develop Community-Based Alternatives. April, 2018

 Young Adults in Conflict with the Law: Opportunities for Diversion, 2017

Juvenile Detention as a Last Resort, 2016

 Automatic Adult Prosecution of Children in Cook County, Illinois, 2010-2012.

 SHIFTING AWAY FROM INCARCERATION: Fiscal Realignment Strategies to End the Mass Incarceration of Youth in the United States. Prepared by Elizabeth Clark, President. Presented at Fifth Biennial Conference of the International Juvenile Justice Observatory (IJJO) in London, Nov. 2012.

 Changing Course: A Review of First Two Years of Drug Transfer Reform in Illinois. Prepared by Elizabeth Kooy, a former Policy Research Analyst/Advocate.

Impact of Access to Social Workers with Defense Counsel at Detention Hearings Grants, Prepared by Elizabeth Kooy, Policy Research Analyst, June 2009

Impact of Illinois’ 2012 Statutory Change Mandating the Least Restrictive Alternative Standard, Models for Change, Lisa Jacobs and Betsy Clarke

2004 - History of Transfer in IL

Chicago Reporter - Juvenile Transfer 2004

Check out JJI’s Youtube Channel for videos of recent summits with national leaders sharing expertise on topics from deincarceration to human rights of children.

JJI has two videos on the harms of the failed policy of automatic transfer to adult court:

Transfer Laws in IL 2002

Changing Course: A Review of the First Two Years of Drug Transfer Reform in IL. 2014

JJI Newsletter Oct. 2008

JJI Newsletter June 2008

JJI Newsletter Winter 2014

JJI Newsletter Spring 2015