Raoul gives young adults arrested as juveniles a fresh start

18-year-olds’ juvenile arrest records for minor offenses could be expunged automatically

SPRINGFIELD, IL –Illinois State Senator Kwame Raoul (D-Chicago 13^th) has won the General Assembly’s approval of his initiative giving some young people arrested as juveniles – but never charged with crimes – an automatic fresh start after they turn 18. The legislation simplifies a process so complicated that only 70 of the 25,000 juveniles arrested last year in Chicago successfully petitioned to have their records expunged.

“A juvenile arrest record can destroy a young person’s first, best shot at adult life, whether that’s a college education, a scholarship or a job opportunity,” Raoul said. “Navigating the current expungement process is so difficult that these young adults, most of whom cannot afford legal counsel, often give up – even when they didn’t commit the offense in question.”

Only juveniles arrested for offenses that would be classified as misdemeanors or Class 3 or 4 felonies (the two lowest levels of severity) would be eligible for automatic expungement— and only if the state’s attorney never filed a petition for delinquency (the juvenile justice equivalent of a formal filing of charges). The legislation also excludes sex offenses. If signed into law, the initiative would require the State Police to expunge juvenile arrest records once a year for all eligible arrestees who turned 18 during the previous year and weren’t arrested again during the past six months.

“The goal of juvenile justice is rehabilitation; we want to speed our young people toward lives of responsibility and promise, not sentence them to lives of hopelessness and crime,” Raoul said. “This new approach will open doors that right now are being slammed in the faces of the next generation.”