General

Ayvaughn Lester’s 16-year-old son was about to return to juvenile detention last winter until a new program interceded. Rather than being incarcerated, again, the youth was enrolled in Redeploy Illinois, launched in January within the First Circuit Judicial District.

In an apparent attempt to bolster his plummeting popularity among African-American voters, Mayor Rahm Emanuel took a bow Monday for the pivotal role he played in passing legislation that would automatically expunge juvenile records if no charges are filed.

The mayor joined community leaders and other prominent politicians Monday in cheering a new state law that would automatically expunge the police records of youths arrested but not convicted of non-violent crimes.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel got a political pat on the back Monday when he was joined by dozens of elected officials and community leaders praising a recently-passed bill that will automatically expunge some arrest records of juveniles.

A Senate panel approved a plan requesting the Illinois Juvenile Justice Commission further study the practice of expunging some juvenile criminal records.

State lawmakers are advancing a plan that could automatically clear the arrest records of some juveniles.

Juveniles can already get their arrest records expunged for minor crimes if they haven’t been taken to court. But Illinois lawmakers want to make it automatic when they turn 18. The law would apply to those who haven’t gotten in further trouble.

The House passed a bill Wednesday that would strike the arrest records of kids who haven’t been convicted of a crime.

The measure passed 74-40 in the House and goes to the Senate.

The three stories are among those of six people highlighted in a handful of videos produced by the Washington, D.C.-based Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth to illustrate lives touched by lengthy imprisonment of people convicted as juveniles.

By the time he was arrested for sexually assaulting two siblings, 15-year-old J.B. had been molested by his alcoholic father and subjected to 25 moves among his birth, foster and adoptive families. He had also suffered from untreated attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and depression. Though tried in juvenile court, with its focus on privacy and rehabilitation, he was later required by a 2012 Pennsylvania law to register as a sex offender — branded a long-term danger to society, with no way off the list for at least 25 years.Juvenile law advocates campaigning against such automatic registries argue that they undermine the rehabilitative purpose of juvenile law and wrongly force judges to treat offenders the same, no matter their circumstances. In Pennsylvania, local judges increasingly agree with them.