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The Western Springs Juvenile Peer Jury has helped guide the area youth since October of 1997 by providing youthful offenders with a second chance. The Police Department Juvenile Officers and coordinators run the program and teens serve as peer jurors, hearing cases referred by the police department. Each jury is comprised of eight teenagers. The jurors alternate and a steady pool is available so that jurors do not hear cases involving friends or acquaintances. Cases before the jury range from curfew to misdemeanors and even felonies.
The Peer Jury is a second chance for first time offenders, where they may avoid juvenile court, and hopefully turn a negative situation into a positive one. Jurors and offenders have benefited from the program. Jurors feel good about contributing to the community and see first hand how poor decisions lead to serious consequences. Past offenders have continued volunteering for social service agencies long after their sentence has been completed and others have received job offers from the agencies upon completion of their sentence. This is an excellent opportunity for youths to get involved in the community. This program is intended to be an effective way to make young offenders accountable for their actions by agreeing to comply with a sentence imposed by a "jury of their peers". The coordinators of the program are adults from Western Springs, and they are to be commended for the giving of their time to this program.
The young offenders perform community service as part of their sentence. The Peer Jury wishes to publicly acknowledge the efforts of those agencies who have assisted the program. Without the help of the following agencies, the young offenders would not learn the valuable lessons that are available through the process:
| First United Methodist Church |
Southwest Suburban Center on Aging |
| Thomas Ford Library |
Center for Independence through Conductive Education |
| Western Springs Fire Department |
Community Nurse Health Association |
| Friends of the Library |
Western Springs Recreation Department |
The Peer Jury program is currently looking for young people between the ages of 13 and 18 to become peer jurors. They must either live in Western Springs, go to school here or attend either LT or Nazareth. Applications can be picked up at the Police Department. The program is also seeking additional community service sites who are a not-for-profit organization and could use volunteers. For more information, contact Sgt. John Piest at 708-246-1800, ext.156 or jpiest@wsprings.com.
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