Approach to Youth - Lake County State's Attorney Candidate Questionnaire

What policies will you advance to address the needs of youth who are disproportionately impacted by the criminal legal system – especially youth who are Black, Latinx and experiencing poverty? What policies will you adopt and/or continue to prioritize to address the harms created by the school-to-prison pipeline?

COLE: AWAITING CANDIDATE'S RESPONSE

What policies will you advance to address the needs of youth who are disproportionately impacted by the criminal legal system – especially youth who are Black, Latinx and experiencing poverty? What policies will you adopt and/or continue to prioritize to address the harms created by the school-to-prison pipeline?

RINEHART: The legal system has failed under-served communities when it comes to equity, fairness, and transparency. Most importantly, the system had destroyed the lives and social imaginations of thousands of young people because it has over-policed and over-incarcerated Black, Latinx, and poor individuals. Again, simply having a State’s Attorney who will say these things is important. Having the data infrastructure to demonstrate these FACTs to skeptics is very important. Aside from this type of leadership, I have expanded deflection and diversion results in our juvenile division. Specifically, in 2021, we started the “STEP-UP” diversion program for juveniles arrested for domestic violence. It has worked extremely well, and none of the participants have been re-arrested. In 2021, we also won a grant to convene a countywide community council on juvenile justice issues. This council is very diverse and is increasing community awareness about racial profiling, mental health disparities, expanding juvenile expungement, the opioid crisis, harm reduction, the importance of DEI training, and cyber bullying. The office’s Gun Violence Prevention Initiative (“GVPI”) has hired a Youth Coordinator to work in schools with at-risk youth in order to provide them with mentoring, warm hand offs to social services, and potentially entry in former President Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper Network. Our GVPI has also partnered with the Office of the Regional Superintendent to building additional programming for youth. We have seen an increase in opioid overdose deaths in our Black and Brown neighborhoods, and we have committed opioid settlement dollars to increased youth education in these areas.

Aside from these importance leadership steps, I placed a career public defender at the head of the juvenile justice division. As a result, we are using incarceration much less. Our commitments to juvenile prison have decreased and our current juvenile detention facility is at 50% capacity. Before Ms. Levi’s leadership, the facility was constantly at capacity.

Aside from these operations, I have been proud to support legislation that is directed at ending coercive interrogations of juvenile suspects. I also supported legislation that ended fines and fees for juvenile cases.