Thanks to JHA’s leadership, all youth in state custody will have their rights protected by the Office of the Independent Juvenile Ombudsman (OIJO)
Public Act 103-0397, which was passed and signed into law in 2023, expands the remit of the OIJO to cover not only youth housed in Illinois’ five state juvenile prisons but also its 16 county-run juvenile detention centers. Protecting the rights of youth in custody and ensuring they have access to a trusted adult/office who can help them both understand and assert their rights and get assistance when needed is critical to the safety and well-being of this vulnerable population.
Illinois’ Office of the Independent Juvenile Ombudsman (OIJO) was created in 2015 with a role to (1) ensure that the rights of youth committed to IDJJ are protected, and (2) to assist in pursuing services for committed youth and their families determined to be in need of assistance. Until now, this oversight and its benefits only extended to youth in state custody. The many youth who are held in county-run juvenile detention facilities did not have access to the services, support, and protections provided by the OIJO. Expansion of this oversight was critically needed; youth are a vulnerable population lacking many safeguards and the ability to self-advocate. Youth require greater protections when they are removed from their homes and are in the custody of the state or county. Additionally, policy changes in Illinois have led to more youth being committed to county detention centers (400+ youth) rather than to IDJJ (160+ youth), and very little information is available about how youth are treated in county facilities.
The effective date of the new law is 2025, but there is work to do to ensure that the office gets an appropriate budget allocation to serve these 16 additional facilities. JHA is working with stakeholders to ensure that the necessary resources are made available in the next fiscal year budget. Increased oversight requires increased capacity, and JHA is involved in making sure the OIJO has what it needs to fulfill its responsibilities under state law and is available to all youth in criminal justice agency custody in Illinois. JHA looks forward to the implementation of the increased jurisdiction of the OIJO in 2025.
We are grateful to Senator Villa and Representative Gonzalez for their leadership on this legislation, and to Governor Pritzker for his support and recognition of the important work of the OIJO.
As a part of our work publicizing the need for this ombuds expansion, JHA was honored to be asked to contribute on this topic to the June 20, 2023 issue of the International Corrections & Prisons Association’s External Prison Oversight newsletter, which is focused on the unique needs and issues of juveniles who are detained and incarcerated. Read our article here.