Cook County Juvenile Court

The first juvenile court was established in Cook County, Illinois, in 1899. After many social and legal organizations pushed for reform, children who were dependent or neglected as well as being delinquent were treated with a more rehabilitative rather than punitive approach. Although this first juvenile court has been criticized as becoming overly bureaucratic and straying from its central mission of rehabilitation, the Cook County Juvenile Court has more recently restructured to adhere to its mission of doing what is in the best interest of the child.

The first juvenile court was born out of the Progressive Era, which saw a need to save children from the ills of urbanization and social poverty. Often referred to as the Child Savers Movement, it involved many social and legal agencies, primarily in Chicago, that began to lobby for reform in the way that children were handled by the criminal justice system. It was believed that if parents could not take care of their children, then the state should take on that role. Homes were established in an effort to correct the behavior of youths and provide them with a structured and disciplined life. These homes were called houses of refuge, and the first was established in New York. They later spread to other cities, including Chicago and Philadelphia.

While these houses of refuge provided safe havens for children, separate legislation for dealing with delinquency and child victims was lacking. The notion that the government should assume responsibility for the supervision and protection of children, a philosophy known as parens patriae, was already well established in England. Two very influential organizations heavily involved in the passage of child reform legislation were the Chicago Women's Club and Hull House. Whereas the Chicago Women's Club worked within the already existing penal system for juvenile reform, Hull House devoted much of its attention to delinquency prevention. Both organizations lobbied members of the Illinois legislature as well as the governor before a bill was passed in 1899. The first juvenile law, titled An Act to Regulate the Treatment and Control of Dependent, Neglected, and Delinquent Children—also known as the Juvenile Court Act of 1899—established the first juvenile court in Cook County. The court opened its doors on July 5, 1899, under the direction of the Honorable R. S. Tuthill.

The juvenile court philosophy remains the same today as when the first court was established: that children in trouble should be helped or treated rather than punished. The court's mission was to make sure that children were provided with the care and protection owed to them by their parents and to do what was in the “best interest of the child.” The presiding judge made clear from the outset that the court was not a place of mere convenience for parents who no longer wanted to handle their children, but rather a place where children could be saved from abuse and neglect or rehabilitated from delinquent behavior.

The court initially suffered from several problems. First, the 1899 legislation, which created the court, provided little guidance on how to pay for its most valuable staff, probation officers. Second, there was a great debate over the juvenile court's jurisdiction. The Chicago Criminal Court argued that, under the Illinois Constitution, it retained ultimate jurisdiction over juveniles, whereas the 1899 law gave such authority to the new court. Third, there was a tense relationship between social service agencies and courtroom actors such as the prosecutor and judge. The former viewed their role as more important, stressing a rehabilitative philosophy, while the latter began to shift their goals toward a more punitive remedy. This was first recognized in the 1950s, when there was no evidence to support an increase in juvenile crime, yet the number of juveniles sentenced to reformatories doubled. In 1961, the Cook County Juvenile Court underwent its first evaluation. The findings suggested that the court had failed to distinguish adequately between cases of neglect, dependency, and delinquency and that it was too political and bureaucratic.

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