It’s the news no parent wants to hear: Your child has just been arrested. It can feel scary, confusing, or overwhelming. Perhaps you don’t know where your child is or what they were arrested for. You might be wondering what happens next and what role police, prosecutors, probation officers, and judges play in the process.
As part of our reporting on the Cook County juvenile justice system and Chicago’s failure to implement a functioning diversion program, we spoke with legal experts to better understand what happens after a child gets arrested in Cook County.
Here’s what we learned.
Disclaimer: We are not attorneys, and this is not intended as legal advice. You should always consult an attorney if you have legal questions.
Children have the right to an attorney after arrest
When a child is arrested, police officers will bring them to a police station to be fingerprinted, photographed, processed, and interviewed. There is no minimum age of arrest in Illinois, unlike in other states. But children younger than 12 years old cannot be held in a municipal lockup for more than six hours.
As with adults, police must inform children of their rights, including the right to remain silent and the right to an attorney. Police departments in Cook County are required to post the Law Office of the Cook County Public Defender’s hotline, at (844) 817-4448, in every station, which parents can also call before talking to the police. The public defender’s office will immediately send an attorney to the police station to represent any child for free.
State law requires officers to “immediately make a reasonable attempt” to reach the child’s parent or guardian. But police are allowed to interrogate a child without an adult present. Officers must ask a child if they want a lawyer, but the child can waive that right, unless they are younger than age 15 and charged with homicide or sexual assault. (State legislators introduced a bill earlier this year to require a lawyer to be present during all interrogations of minors, but the bill didn’t make it out of committee.)
Formal station adjustment vs. informal station adjustment
Upon arrest, a child may receive a station adjustment. A station adjustment is when the officer makes a record of the arrest but does not refer the case to juvenile court. There are two kinds of station adjustments: formal station adjustments and informal station adjustments.
Through an informal station adjustment, a child can be released to a parent or a guardian under certain conditions, such as curfew or community service, without having to admit their guilt. A formal station adjustment requires the child to admit their guilt in writing, and the parent and child to agree to the conditions of release. As part of a station adjustment, police may refer a child to a diversion program, which could include programming or social services.
If the child violates the conditions of a station adjustment, the officer may give a warning, extend the term of their conditions to a maximum of 180 days, extend community service to a maximum of 40 hours, or refer the child to juvenile court.
If detained, children must go before a judge within 40 hours of their arrest
If a child is referred to court, the law enforcement agency will contact the Cook County Juvenile Probation and Court Services Department. A juvenile probation officer will use a point-based screening process to determine whether the child should be detained at the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center or released while they await their first court hearing. The screening process takes into account the type and the severity of the charge and the child’s background, which could include school attendance, arrest history, and family involvement. If a child scores 15 points or more, they must be held at the detention center until their court hearing. If they score fewer than 15 points, they can be released to a parent or a guardian with a notice to appear at their first court hearing. Any child charged with having a gun automatically receives 15 points and is detained.
The detention hearing is supposed to take place within 40 hours of the arrest (not including holidays and weekends). During that hearing, a juvenile court judge will determine whether there is probable cause to charge the child with a crime and whether the child should remain in the juvenile jail while their case progresses. The judge may order electronic monitoring, home confinement, or short-term community programs as an alternative to detention while the child awaits trial.
Juvenile court protects a child’s privacy
One difference between juvenile court and the adult court criminal system is that delinquency is not considered a criminal conviction. Children found delinquent in juvenile court do not have to say they were convicted of a crime in housing, education, or employment applications.
Another difference is the laws in place to protect a child’s identity in juvenile court. Journalists can request to be present during juvenile court proceedings, but they are not allowed to publicly disclose the child’s name or access their records in a way that violates the child’s privacy. Anyone seeking to inspect juvenile court records must file a formal petition with the court.
Some juvenile cases are also eligible for automatic expungement, meaning all records of the arrest and court outcome would be erased. Examples include some cases in which a child was arrested but not charged, the charges were dismissed, or the child was found not delinquent. A case is also eligible for automatic expungement if the child was found delinquent of a low-level misdemeanor or was sentenced to supervision and completed the terms satisfactorily. Certain cases cannot be automatically expunged if the person who was arrested has a pending juvenile or adult criminal case.
Any adult whose juvenile case did not qualify for automatic expungement can petition the court to expunge their juvenile court records, though in some cases they have to wait two years after all juvenile court proceedings have ended. First-degree murder adjudications and cases requiring a person to register as a sex offender are not eligible for expungement, as long as the person is on the sex offender registry. Unlike adults, children can petition for removal from the sex offender registry after two years of registration for misdemeanors and five years for felonies. If approved, the child can petition the court for expungement.
Resources
- Cook County public defender’s office arrest hotline, (844) 817-4448.
- Legal Aid Chicago’s Juvenile Expungement Help Desk, located at 1100 S. Hamilton Ave., accepts walk-ins Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information, call (312) 229-6072.
- Legal Aid Chicago also offers free community-based legal clinics throughout Chicago, (312) 341-1070
- Equip for Equality provides legal aid for people with disabilities, (800) 537-2632
Editor’s note: This story was updated Aug. 28, to clarify information about juvenile expungement.
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