Park Ridge police, Maine Township using strategies to curb youth misbehavior
Park Ridge businesses and residents have complained about the way young people behave in the city’s Uptown business district, from boys wrestling on sidewalks to crowds of kids shooting off fireworks in Hinkley Park.
A Park Ridge civic organization held a meeting Oct. 11 to discuss that behavior and how youth get disciplined. Police Chief Robert Kampwirth told Pioneer Press a day after being inaugurated last month that the police department would want to help provide solutions.
Some members of the civic organization, called Action Ridge, want to expand those conversations to try restorative practices.
Police Officer Carlos Panizo, a Maine South High School student resource officer who patrols Uptown during summer months, spoke to members of Action Ridge at their monthly meeting. He said that in the summer months, middle school students – seventh and eighth graders – are the ones who congregate in Uptown near Northwest Highway and Euclid Avenue.
“Generally, they clump in groups of 20 to 50,” said Panizo. He said in those scenarios, groups of girls gather to talk; boys, on the other hand, get a bit more rowdy and their behavior can fall under disorderly conduct.
“They start to want to have to do something and just be physical,” said Panizo.
Panizo described a situation where he saw a young man carving his initials into a table at Panera in Uptown. He said in order to right the wrong, he gives the victim, in this case the manager of Panera, four options to obtain justice.
The first option would be to call the child’s parents, have them come to Panera and work out restitution for the damage with the manager. The second option would be to charge the child criminally, which would go one of two ways.
Panizo could charge the child with a city ordinance violation, much like a ticket the city gives for overgrown lawns. Because Park Ridge adopts state of Illinois laws to its city ordinances, the child could be charged with vandalism or criminal damage to property. The child and his parents would need to go before a judge at the Skokie Courthouse, and a fine or community service might be the consequence.
The other way of criminally charging a child would be going through juvenile courts, where Panizo would have to petition for the juvenile to be charged. Panizo said the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office would examine the petition to decide if they would like to pursue charges. Panizo, however, said that might not be an effective way to get justice.
“To be honest in Cook County, our juvenile court system is very taxed with actual carjackers and murderers. Unfortunately.... something like a criminal damage (to) property at Panera would never come back [as something the State’s Attorney would want to pursue],” said Panizo.
The fourth option that Panizo could give to the Panera manager in this scenario would be to send the child to Peer Jury, a program run by Maine Township’s MaineStay Youth and Family Services department. In the program, the offender’s peers, made up of teenagers from ages 14 to 17, would decide on an appropriate amount of community service after asking the child questions about what they did and taking time to reflect.
Evan White, the agency and program coordinator for MaineStay, went into detail about what Peer Jury is like for someone going into the program. “It’s a pretty calm environment,” described White. “It’s not as scary as going to [a courthouse].” He added that the jury does not give out fines, which can also be appealing to parents.
Offenders can only participate in the program by admitting guilt to the infraction, said White. Jurors will ask the offender what they did before and after to get a complete picture of the motive of their misbehavior. After that, the jury will ask questions like, “How did you feel afterward?” “Did you get an adrenaline rush?” “How has this affected your relationships with other people?”
White said the jury asks those questions in that order so that the offender can relive what they did and then reflect on it with the jury. After the conversation, the jury decides how many hours of community service the offender must complete. White said the only instance in which an offender did not complete their community service was when the offender moved away.
White said jurors participate on a volunteer basis, and 22 are signed up for the program. He said a good number of Maine South High School students participate as jurors and some of them have a general interest in criminal justice and may want to pursue legal or law enforcement careers. In circumstances where an offender and a juror know each other, the juror is excused to prevent a biased community service recommendation.
Peer Jury is only available for first-time offenders and non-violent offenses. White said the most severe case he ever saw was when a 17-year-old girl was caught stealing credit cards. If the girl had been over 18, she would have been charged criminally, which would have gone on her criminal record.
“She could have gone to jail and (had to) pay a very serious fine,” said White. “It could feel like you’re about to go to college and start your career, and it could have been immediately over — because it would have been on her record.”
Peer Jury meets once a month, skipping over July, August and January. White said when the jurors meet, they typically go through one to three cases involving one to eight individuals.
Panizo said that on most occasions when he goes over options with a victim, he hears things like “I don’t want to ruin their lives,” meaning that victims don’t want to press charges that will go on a child’s criminal record. When a child is charged with a city ordinance or is sent to Peer Jury, their record is sealed, Panizo said.
