State's Attorney's Office Research Articles

Child abuse prevention at report card time

Report Card distribution reportedly triggers an outbreak of child abuse. If we can prevent that outburst of anger at this time by initiating a process of family and community attitudinal change through offering positive parenting techniques and crisis intervention by phone, we would significantly reduce the incidence of physical abuse. The Mayor's Office for Children and Youth and The Baltimore City Commission for Children and Youth developed a school related child abuse prevention campaign which included messages to parents on colorful attractive cards suggesting positive parenting techniques and crisis intervention phone numbers which were distributed with each report card. Public Service Announcements (PSAs) for TV were developed with the same positive parenting message and aired just prior to and during the week of Report Card distribution. Agencies and organizations whose mission is child abuse prevention, mental health treatment and social support participated as well as agencies and organizations involved in tutoring and academic support. All of the 180 schools in Baltimore City used the cards and teachers and administrators reported a change in parental attitude, more parent visits and better communication between teachers and parents. The phone numbers on the cards were used at a significantly higher rate each time the cards came home, some as many as 400 times their normal call rate. After one year of the project, the State's Attorney's Office observed that incidents of known child abuse as a result of a bad report card was down from 90 to two. This project was continued for six years first with state funds and after three years with private foundation funds. At this time, the Baltimore City School System has adopted the program and is distributing the cards. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Criminal prosecution of child sexual abuse cases

To describe the outcome of prosecuting alleged intrafamilial/caretaker child sexual abuse, the authors evaluated charts for 1986–1988 at La Rabida Children's Hospital and Research Center in Chicago, plus police records for Area V. Chicago, for 1986–1987. The state's attorney's office provided data on outcome of legal proceedings. Of 451 allegations, 324 (72%) were formally designated as probable sexual abuse cases, and 269 (83%) alleged perpetrators were identified. Complaints (77 felonies, 29 misdemeanors, and 30 juvenile charges) were initiated by the police for preliminary hearings against 136 (51%) persons. Of the felony charges, 66 (85.7%) resulted in indictments, and 11 (14.3%) in dismissal of charges by judge or grand jury. Thirty-two (48.5%) of those indicted pleaded guilty, 24 (36%) went to trial; 16 (67%) were found guilty, and 8 (12%) had charges dismissed. Therefore, of the 77 felony complaints initiated, 48 (62%) ended in convictions and 29 (38%) in dismissals or not-guilty verdicts. Only 24 (5%) of the original allegations resulted in trials. Although 30% of allegations and 51% of alleged perpetrators ended up in court, only 17% of the original 451 allegations were prosecuted for a felony. For felony indictments, 36% of victims appeared in court. Forty-three of 48 persons found guilty served time (mean sentencing time, 6.8 years). The mean time from initial hearing to final disposition was 321 days and was significantly longer if the accused either went to trial (501 vs. 236 days) or was found guilty or pleaded guilty (353 vs. 254 days for not-guilty verdicts). The authors conclude that very few children (5%) have to appear as witnesses in court, as most cases are resolved by plea bargaining, and that resolution by trial can take 12 to 16 months.

Improving Academic Achievement Through Success (IMPAACTS)

Abstract It is the purpose of this paper to describe Improving Academic Achievement Through Success (IMPAACTS), a program designed to assist first-time juvenile offenders, participating in a deferred prosecution program, in improving their academic achievement. IMPAACTS was designed in response to a problem situation presented by staff of the State Attorney's Office, 4th Judicial Circuit of Florida, Jacksonville, Florida.

Victims Assistance in Illinois: A Case Study

Within recent years there has been increased sensitivity in the United States to the rights and needs of victims of crime. Illinois, which at the turn of the century pioneered the juvenile court, has taken the lead in the area of rights for crime victims and witnesses. The needs of victims for compensation, information, notification, recognition, and assistance have been met by the Illinois legislature and, by extension, by the criminal justice system. This article discusses The Illinois Crime Victims Compensation Act, The Violent Crime Victims Assistance Act, The Bill of Rights for Victims and Witnesses of Violent Crime, as well as specific provisions mandated by the state's Penal Code and other legislative acts. Also reviewed are the victim-related programs of two major criminal justice agencies. The Illinois Attorney General's Office and the Cook County State's Attorney's Office.

Abortion law enforcement in Chicago

The following is a study of all but four cases involving abortion offenses in which indictments were sought for the sixteen year period, 1950 through 1965, in Chicago, Illinois. The charges include abortion, attempted abortion, and conspiracy to commit abortion. The study is based on information contained in the files of the Chicago Crime Commission, a nongovernmental organization supported through donations of private citizens. The term refers to a separate file maintained by the Chicago Crime Commission. Each file represents, basically, a single effort at law enforcement. Thus, one case may include more than one defendant who may be charged with more than one offense. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the quality of law enforcement of abortion offenses on three levels-the police, the state attorney's office, and judges at the trial level. Because the study is concerned with typical enforcement practices, four cases involving murder by abortion have been excluded.

The Discretionary Powers of the Prosecuting Attorney in West Germany

prosecuting attorney in the Federal Republic of Germany has by no means the same degree of freedom in the exercise of discretion as belongs to his American counterpart. difference arises above all from historical reasons. About the middle of the 19th century the office of prosecuting attorney (Staatsanwaltschaft) was introduced into the states of the German Federation following the prototype of the French procureur du roi. purpose of the new institution was first and foremost to replace by the accusatorial process the old inquisitorial procedure, in which the roles of prosecutor and decisionmaker were united in one and the same person-namely, the judge. Indeed, it was expressly stated by the first German National Assembly of 1848 to be one of the fundamental rights of the German people that: criminal cases the accusatorial process shall be used. However, it was felt undesirable to turn the power to prosecute a complaint over to either the police or the injured party. On the one hand the former stood too much in the shadow of the authoritarian state that people had wanted to discard in the liberal revolution of 1848. fear prevailed that the police, if placed in the position of prosecuting agency, would assert too strongly the state's desire to exercise power, and would not subject themselves sufficiently to the strict observation of law which people wanted in criminal proceedings. aggrieved private party on the other hand appeared similarly unsuitable to perform the prosecutorial function. Here the concern was that the accustomed thoroughness of criminal justice under the inquisitorial system, which, after all, had preserved law and order under the absolute state not badly, would be lost under a purely private system of presenting the prosecution's case. Thus the mid-nineteenth century reform movement in criminal procedure created the office of prosecuting attorney as an institution to take over the function of prosecution independent of the court itself, but which at the same time could preserve the zealousness of the prosecution. As in France, the primary function of the German state's attorney's office is initiating criminal prosecution. Rules of Criminal Procedure' state: The initiation of judicial investigation is conditioned upon the filing of a criminal complaint. In immediate juxtaposition to

The Pinball Problem. Alternative Solutions

Mr. Bilek is Chief of the Cook County (Chicago), Illinois Sheriff's Police Department. Chief Bilek received the B.S. degree in 1951 from Loyola University, Chicago, and the Master of Social Work degree in 1953 from Loyola University. He is a graduate of several courses in police science and administration and is presently an instructor at the University of Illinois, University of Louisville, and Northwestern University. He has also served as an instructor at Indiana University and St. Joseph's College, East Chicago, Indiana. Chief Bilek is currently Vice-Chairman of the International Association of Chiefs of Police Education and Training Committee. Mr. Ganz is a member of the Bar of the State of Illinois. Mr. Ganz received the B.A. degree in 1954 from Wabash College and the LL.B. degree in 1959 from the Harvard Law School. From 1959 to 1961, Mr. Ganz served as an Assistant State's Attorney in the State's Attorney's office of Cook County, Illinois. Both the technical and important distinctions between amusement and gambling pinball machines and the host of problems engendered by current attempts to regulate the manufacture and use of the devices are explored in this article. The authors offer alternative legislative solutions for the consideration of state and local law-making bodies and include model legislation developed after considerable law enforcement experience in this area.-EDITOR.

Vignettes of the Criminal Law

where he was serving a twenty-five year sentence for robbery of the United States Mails. The state's attorney's office was not satisfied to see him punished merely by imprisonment. They wanted his life for the murder that resulted, according to their theory, as an outgrowth of the mail robbery. Their contention was that after the defendant had robbed the mails and was carrying away his loot, he approached a doctor driving a Ford Coupe. He commanded the physician to step out of his car. The defendant jumped in and drove away. He had not driven far when he was approached by a deputy sheriff of Cook County who had been directed to the scene of the robbery. The sheriff was slain, apparently, as he tried to make the arrest. There was no direct identification of the accused as the man who killed the deputy. Circumstantial evidence, however, indicated that he, must have been the slayer. He made no statements to the police upon his arrest, a short time after the robbery. The Ford Coupe was abandoned in Barrington, many miles from the southwest part of the county, where the hold-up and murder took place. To prosecute this hanging case, the State's Attorney assigned two of his most experienced men, attorneys bent upon securing a verdict of death. To complete the picture was a judge known to be very strict in his rulings, determined to enforce the law to its last letter. A court reporter testified for the defense as to the answers which hsad been made by two of the state's witnesses to questions propounded at the coroner's inquest. Such testimony was not admissible as original evidence, on account of being hearsay. A foundation had been laid for it, however, by asking two prosecuting witnesses on cross-examination if they had not made the statements in question at the inquest. The court reporter's testimony revealed that they had in fact made these statements at that time. Next was called the defendant's mother, whose address proved to be a street in the village

Thwarting official crime and corruption in Chicago

AbstractThe battle to drive crime and graft from the state's attorney's office.