A new approach to fighting juvenile crime begins with a new courthouse in Peoria County

In Peoria, juvenile arrests have increased nearly 30% in the past year, with crimes such as carjackings and attempted robberies among the most common. A broad coalition of city, county and state organizations is working on a new approach.

Peoria Police Chief Eric Echevarria has publicly stated that most of these crimes are committed by the same handful of juveniles. Creating a “problem-solving juvenile court” would forego a “cookie-cutter” approach to targeting these specific youth.

10th Judicial District Judge Frank Ierulli has taken the judicial lead in creating the court, which has been in development for more than a year. After pleading guilty, defendants are referred to services that address the underlying factors of their crime, such as poverty, addiction and mental health. The program excludes some violent crimes, such as murder and sexual assault.

“While I would like to believe we can help everyone, I'm not sure we can, I'm not naive, but I believe we can help a significant proportion of them. And because of that it will have a huge impact,” Ierulli said.

The program would be more hands-on than typical probation. While an average parole period may require a monthly probation visit, this court could require contact with departments once a week.

Jessica Durbin is the chief probation officer for the Peoria County Juvenile Probation Department.

“In addition to the probation service working with this youth, there would also be some type of service provider, whatever is relevant to them,” she said. “Whether that's a psychiatrist, maybe someone who specializes in substance abuse disorders, you know, whatever their particular, individual needs are.”

But as Tim Bertschy, co-chair of the Peoria City/County Joint Commission on Racial Justice and Equity (RJE), says, there are still many unknowns as the book on how this court operates is literally being written.

The manual will be submitted to the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts for review.

“The manual will show or demonstrate how we operate this court,” Bertschy said. “And then after about six months they come in and essentially do an audit to see how we're doing and make sure we're hitting the targets we were hoping for.”

In addition to Judge Ierulli and the RJE Judicial Task Force, the project's partners include District Attorney Jodi Hoos, the Peoria County Probation Department, a number of organizations throughout the city that would provide support services, and Chief Judge Katherine Gorman.

“I’m a proponent of problem-solving courts,” Gorman said. “I would like to express my gratitude to my father, who brought the drug court here as chief judge in the mid-90s.”

Durbin's parole team will have to adjust to a more demanding system. However, she sees clear benefits in changing the approach to juvenile justice.

“There are a lot of people who are interested in juvenile crime, which is really appreciated because we just need to stay abreast of what's going on,” she said. “But I think what’s beneficial to the problem-solving court is that it brings these community agencies together.”

Ierulli said the courthouse needs funding for a dedicated counselor and two additional probation officers to run the program.

“Programs like this are understandably expensive,” he said. “But it is far more expensive if a young person commits crimes over and over again.”

Detaining children in county facilities is expensive, Ierulli says, and the cost-benefit analysis supports preventing it.

Bertschy hopes that this problem-solving court can achieve something that seemed unattainable with the current system of juvenile justice and detention centers.

“I don't know if I have the exact numbers, but I think most people would say they're back in the community within a few months and that, frankly, the detention center has done little to change their behavior or to strengthen them.” “There are individual ways to address these problems,” said Bertschy.

As work on the problem-solving court progresses, the group has also relaunched a Juvenile Justice Coordinating Council, coordinated by Ashley Cornish, another juvenile probation officer.

According to Tim Bertschy, a community-wide evaluation of the juvenile justice system should hopefully identify some areas where additional coordination, funding, incentives or a combination of the three could be applied.

The group expects the juvenile court to begin operations early next year.