As Illinois pushes to reform its juvenile justice system, one lawmaker says lessons learned from across the Atlantic could help change the state’s approach to young people in conflict with the law.

A group of Illinois state legislators, policymakers and practitioners went to Northern Ireland to see firsthand how its Child First juvenile justice system supports better outcomes for kids and communities.

State Rep. Kelly Cassidy, D-Chicago, said she was struck by the difference in how their system approaches the issue – seeing these young people as children rather than offenders.

"If we could just start by adopting the concept of children first – like, acknowledge that they are children and then work from that place," said Cassidy, "that alone would be a huge shift because they are offenders first under our system."

Cassidy also noted that prosecutors are not politicians in Northern Ireland, which she says removes the competitive political nature from the entire justice system there.

She stressed how much this differs from the U.S. and can serve to be effective in the push for criminal justice reform.

But Northern Ireland covers an area smaller than the city of Chicago, so Cassidy said questions remain about how to scale Child First policies on a state level.

She said she plans to leverage her Restorative Justice Committee to learn more, and says this could mean participating in hearings for the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Cassidy said that is already the foundation of Northern Ireland's system.

"While we are signers on that treaty, we've never ratified it – and as such, we're not held to it," said Cassidy. "But I think that that jumping-off point is such a critical piece of this puzzle that I want us as lawmakers to start exploring what that would look like."

Among statewide initiatives, Cook County has launched a program to provide alternatives to pretrial detention for teens charged with crimes by keeping them in school during this time instead. Currently, a young person can be detained for 30 days or more before trial.

The state will also raise the minimum age for jailing children starting July 1st.

Source: Public News Service