Statewide arrests among 18- to 25-year-olds are comparatively high but trending downward, according to data presented at Thursday’s quarterly meeting of the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council [CJCC].
With one notable exception.
Lisa Jacobs from Loyola University School of Law appeared at the meeting via Zoom. Data indicate that much like juveniles, charges involving firearms are spiking among emerging adults statewide.
“There are a couple reasons young adults are such a critical population,” she said.
Despite the downward trend of arrests overall, 18- to 25-year-olds still make up an outsized proportion of the statewide population.
“Despite being about 15% of the Illinois population, we’ve been seeing about 30% of our arrest population comprised of emerging adults,” Jacobs said.
Jacobs said intervention is critical before, during and after a young person encounters the criminal justice system. That includes equipping law enforcement with skills for working with young adults and understanding how they may interact differently than a teen or older adult.
“If they’re in front of their peers, they’re going to behave differently than if people can interact with them one on one,” Jacobs said. “They’re much more likely to perceive aggression and anger when in fact the people they’re interacting with are not angry with them. So how do we deescalate?”
But McLean County Chief Deputy Sheriff Hadley Welch said there’s a lot that is outside their control.
“I think of the school system and how it’s probably happening on that level, too,” he said. “You can certainly teach us on how to do things differently and better communicate with the kids. What can we do, though, from the opposite direction and have people come together?”
Jacobs said schools and families are at the core of emerging adults’ behavior. They’re also highly malleable based on interactions with law enforcement—if officers and judges are set up for success.
“One of the primary things we have to think about is the resources you have,” Jacobs said. “Because a lot of the alternatives to arrest, the crisis responses, are cut off at age 18, largely. And so, if the research is telling us that’s not the dividing line between where young people need these resources and where law enforcement needs resources, we need to rethink that.”
To address those questions, Jacobs said the Illinois Supreme Court is forming a task force around emerging adults. What McLean County can’t yet know is how they fare comparatively. Data on emerging adults are not stratified by county, for example. And recidivism is difficult to track since the state has no centralized way of documenting those who reoffend.
Normal Police Chief Steve Petrilli said the statewide trends for emerging adults track with what his department is seeing, despite what he sees as early and often intervention from their community engagement unit and school resource officers.
“I don’t know that I’ve been in law enforcement at a time that we’re doing as much community outreach as what we do right now,” said Petrilli. “But that doesn’t correct the family unit. I think that’s really at the heart of where a lot of these issues come up. The police can’t be the mom and dad.”
Jacobs said, anecdotally, McLean County is ahead. McLean County Court Services, which administers probation, has put focused resources into emerging adults. They’ve considered a specialized court for that population. Chief Judge Casey Costigan said the mere fact that the CJCC exists puts them ahead. In his closing remarks, he said several of his counterparts in other counties do not have such a mechanism for various law enforcement agencies to communicate.
But as far as prevention, Judge William Yoder, who leads McLean County court's criminal division, questioned if that is really the role of the criminal justice system.
“This is a Criminal Justice Coordinating Council tasked with trying to find criminal justice solutions to issues,” he said. “Is it a criminal justice issue to try to prevent a young person from even entering the realm of a youthful offender? Is it an effective and/or appropriate use of criminal justice funds to try to head off the problem before it even exists?”
“My comment would be a both/and,” Jacobs said. “An all of the above. I am never going to suggest that earlier intervention is not better. It should be a both/and because we do have young adults coming into the system. There are tremendous opportunities.”
