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Law School investigates juvenile court system

The University's Law School has completed research that attempts to take a closer look and suggest changes in the juvenile court system in Southern Illinois.

From surveys and a two-day training session, the Law School concluded it needs to be more involved in juvenile cases and the community would benefit from having a judge who specialized in neglect and abuse proceedings.

"Southern Illinois would benefit from a clinical program at the Law School that introduced students to juvenile law or juvenile law acts in Illinois," said Mary Rudasill, clinical director and associate professor for the School of Law.

November Davison, a 2000 graduate, helped with the research, saying the purpose was to help improve the juvenile court system.

"The main focus of this project was to provide some sort of improvement within the juvenile court system, and we did that by having a training to train everybody who's involved in the juvenile court proceedings," Davison said.

The research began with a grant written by Rudasill, who became interested in the idea of exploring the juvenile court system in Southern Illinois after speaking with Second Circuit Chief Judge George W. Timberlake, who has been a juvenile court judge for the past 15 years.

"We wanted to try and see how we could improve the amount and quality of the legal representation of the children," Rudasill said.

Timberlake said the research conducted by the University showed there is work to be done in the court systems and more reliance on research is needed. He also said more professionals who specialize in the juvenile court system are needed.

"Unless we get consistency and expertise, then the court system is not going to do the best job they can," Timberlake said. "If you only walk into juvenile court one day every three weeks, you don't know what's going on."

Timberlake said the training conducted during the research helped bring professionals up to date on the research being done on juvenile court cases and he hopes it will light a spark in someone to know and do more.

Rudasill said they created an advisory board consisting of judges, prosecuting attorneys, defense attorneys, child advocates, physician, DCFS regional administrators and workers, and those who work for outside agencies dealing with abused and neglected children.

The board helped set up how the research would be conducted and identified some of the needs of the juvenile court systems in Southern Illinois.

Surveys were sent to 378 people in the region who deal with juveniles in abuse and neglect proceedings asking for their opinion on the current juvenile court system and the way it is run.

"We asked questions about what kind of training would be beneficial, what were the weaknesses and strengths of the juvenile court system," Rudasill said.

A two-day training for officials involved in juvenile cases was then held in July. The training was based around the results of the surveys, and approximately 166 people attended, mostly those involved in social work.

Davison said most judges and attorneys in smaller counties are not trained in dealing with juvenile cases, unlike larger counties that have specific judges who hear only those particular cases.

She said one of the main goals of the training was to conduct cross training between law officials and social workers. She said with each party sometimes not fully understanding each other's guidelines and responsibilities, communication can become lost.

"There's a lot of guidelines that need to be followed, and I guess as a whole, the key players don't understand each other's roles," Davison said.

Davison said the most important thing that came out of the research was not only a better understanding of the juvenile court system for herself, but also the training received by some of the community officials dealing with juvenile cases.

"We provided a multi-disciplinary training to a pretty large group of people, so at least a 106 people came out of the training with a better understanding of each other's roles, a more multi-disciplinary approach on how to handle juvenile abuse and neglect cases and better communication," Davison said.

Rudasill said right now, the Law School's clinical programs are complete and adding one that concentrated on juvenile law is not currently in the future. However, she said she would be more than willing to start a juvenile clinic if given the opportunity. She also said she is looking into teaching a class on juvenile law in the near future.

"Anything the school of law can do to provide information or assistance that will improve the way the judicious system works is worth while," Rudasill said.

 

 

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