On Good Authority

              – 1 –
Police use of formal and
informal station adjustments
for juveniles in Illinois
On Good Authority
Vol. 6, No. 4
November 2002
On Good Authority is a periodic
briefing on trends and issues in
criminal justice research and program
evaluation. This report was written by
staff Research Analyst Timothy Lavery.
It is a summary of an implementation
evaluation of the Juvenile Justice
Reform Provisions of 1998 conducted
by the Authority for the Illinois
Juvenile Justice Commission. Copies
of the evaluation are available from
the Authority’s Research and Analysis
Unit.
The Illinois Criminal Justice
Information Authority is a state
agency dedicated to improving the
administration of criminal justice in
Illinois. The basic functions of the
Authority are criminal justice
research, federal and state grants
administration, and information
systems development and support.
For more information, or for copies
of this or other publications, contact
the Authority at (312) 793-8550, or
visit our Web site at
www.icjia.state.il.us.
The evaluation was supported by a contract
with the Illinois Juvenile Justice Commission, in
partnership with the Illinois Department of
Human Services, using federal funds allocated
pursuant to the Juvenile Justice Delinquency
Prevention Act. Points of view in this document
do not necessarily represent the official
position or policies of the U.S. Department of
Justice, the Illinois Department of Human
Services, or the Illinois Juvenile Justice
Commission.
Printed by authority of the State of Illinois,
October 2002. Printing order #03-103;
6,500 copies.
George H. Ryan
Governor
Peter B. Bensinger
Chairman
Candice M. Kane
Executive Director
By Timothy Lavery
Research Analyst
ILLINOIS
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
INFORMATION AUTHORITY
Juvenile police officers in Illinois have
the authority to resolve juvenile
cases by issuing station adjust-ments.
Station adjustments allow officers
to intervene and redirect delinquent
minors, while still ensuring that minors are
held accountable for their actions. When
juvenile police officers issue a station
adjustment, they arrest the minor, handle
the case at the police station, and then
release the minor without referring the
case to court. Minors who are issued
station adjustments may be required to
complete one or more conditions as part
of a station adjustment plan. Station
adjustments are typically issued for less
serious offenses.
The Juvenile Justice Reform Provi-sions
of 1998 made changes to Illinois
station adjustment laws that require
juvenile police officers to distinguish
between two types of station adjust-ments:
formal and informal. No such
distinction existed prior to the reform
provisions.
Laws describing how formal and
informal station adjustments are to be
handled appear in the Illinois Juvenile
Court Act (705 ILCS 405/5-301). Table 1
describes the necessary prerequisites for
issuing formal and informal station
adjustments, conditions that may be
imposed, and the consequences if minors
fail to abide by the conditions.
Table 1 also looks at distinctions
between the two types of station adjust-ments.
It shows that the formal station
adjustment section in the Illinois Juvenile
Court Act includes more detail than the
informal station adjustment section, and
suggests that formal station adjustments
are intended to be a more rigorous
response to juvenile crime than informal
station adjustments.
Last spring, the Illinois Criminal
Justice Information Authority completed
an evaluation examining the implementa-tion
of the reform provisions throughout
Illinois. Two components of the evalua-tion
examined how juvenile police officers
are responding to the distinction between
formal and informal station adjustments.
First, a survey was distributed to juvenile
police officers throughout Illinois. The
survey asked officers a number of
questions regarding how they handle
formal and informal station adjustments.
The survey was completed by a random
sample of 69 juvenile police officers,
approximately two-thirds of whom work in
urban counties in northern Illinois.
Surveys were administered during spring
and summer of 2000. The responses,
therefore, reflect the situation as it stood
approximately a year and a half after
enactment of the new laws.
Another component of the evalua-tion
was a case study describing how
formal and informal station adjustments
are handled in one Illinois law enforce-ment
agency. The case study made it
possible to obtain detailed information