The Illinois Geneal Assembly has just concluded its very consequential Fall Veto Session. Justice reform legislation that it passed in this session includes:
- Clean Slate Act Legislation, which will automate the expungement and sealing of criminal records in Illinois, impacting some 2 million Illinois residents by eliminating the (often prohibitively complicated) extra procedures now required obtain the sealing or expungement of records already allowed under the law.
- Juvenile detention – long-sought legislation that raises the minimum age for juvenile detention from 10 to 13 and establishes a Juvenile Detention Utilization Task Force to shift fiscal incentives away from detention to community alternatives, and
- the Court Access, Safety, and Participation Act to protect court access for all individuals, including victims of domestic violence, witnesses, and immigrants, who may be hesitant to attend court proceedings due to recent arrests, to be enforced by a right of civil action for damages.
Please also note:
- a new volunteering opportunity to participate in the relaunch of the Cook County Jail Votes Project, noted in the section of the website on Volunteering Opportunities in Illinois
- some Upcoming Programs and Events,
- developments related to the Illinois Department of Corrections, noted in the section of the website on Developments in Illinois and Federal Justice and
- several important reports, mentioned in Books, Reports and Articles, that have appeared in the past couple of months on issues related to understanding and reforming the criminal legal system.
All of these developments are also noted in the section of the website on Getting Involved in Criminal Justice Reform.
I hope that you will find this information, and the other resources in the Website to be useful in pursuing your commitments to justice reform in Illinois, whatever they are.