State drug law hits city tens, minorities

By: Sarah KarpThe men come out of lockup with their hands behind their backs, eyes staring at the ground, hair uncombed. The older prisoners, many struggling from days without heroin or crack, look especially worn and wanting.

At least once a month since October, 16-year-old T.J. has watched the procession of men while sitting on the hardwood benches at the Cook County Criminal Courts Building, 2600 S. California Ave. T.J. said he stays up nights, dreading what will happen if he joins them in prison, a boy thrown into a den of hardened criminals.

“I hear the jail is worse than out here,” T.J. mumbled, though he found it difficult to imagine a place worse than his own neighborhood of West Garfield Park, a tough stretch on Chicago’s West Side dotted with boarded up apartment buildings and vacant lots. Since January, one of T.J.’s friends has been shot and killed and two others have been wounded in the neighborhood.

T.J., who wears a diamond stud earring and has a taste for designer clothes, was arrested Oct. 6 and charged with possession of cocaine with intent to deliver near his former elementary school, Helen M. Hefferan School, 4409 W. Wilcox St.

He may wind up in an adult prison because he violated a provision of the Illinois Juvenile Court Act of 1987. The law automatically transfers to adult court 15- and 16-year-olds charged with selling drugs within 1,000 feet of a school or public housing development.

And while studies show that drug use abounds in many areas—including the white, affluent Chicago suburbs—the automatic transfer law singles out minority youth in poor city neighborhoods, according to a joint investigation by The Chicago Reporter and WBEZ Radio, 91.5 FM.

Juvenile drug cases were transferred to Cook County Criminal Court 363 times from 1995 to 1999, and 99 percent of the teens charged were African American or Latino. Ninety-seven percent lived in the city.

Only 10 suburban Cook County juveniles were transferred to adult court under the law; all were African Americans.

An analysis by the Reporter found that schools and public housing buildings cover more area in the city than in suburban Cook County.

And “who lives in public housing?” asked Cook County Public Defender Rita Aliese Fry. “Poor minorities.”

Adelia Yee, policy associate with the National Conference of State Legislatures, said no other state she knows of imposes this kind of mandatory penalty on young drug offenders.

And the consequences of the automatic transfer law are harsh and permanent. If convicted, T.J. could be sentenced to a youth center run by the Illinois Department of Corrections. Under court order, he could be transferred to adult prison on his 17th birthday. At 18, he automatically would be sent to adult prison.

T.J. also could be placed on adult probation. Either way, he will be marked with a felony conviction, a label that will stand in his way when he fills out job or college applications.

The law is another way to “demonize young black boys,” said Randolph Stone, director of the University of Chicago’s Mandel Legal Aid Clinic, which represents indigent young people.

“I do not think there is a great white person deciding to criminalize people of color,” he said. “The intent might be benign, but it is clearly demonstrated that African Americans are disproportionately impacted.”

William O’Brien, chief of the narcotics prosecution bureau at the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, denies race is a factor in deciding who is automatically transferred under the law. The difference, he said, is in the nature of drug dealing in the city and suburbs.

In the 1980s, city drug dealers took their businesses out of basements and apartments and set up shop on street corners, where they could make transactions quickly, O’Brien said.

“These day laborers hold residents hostage,” he added. “We have a videotape where nine deals were made right in the middle of kids playing football.”

But in the suburbs, drug dealing continues to be done in the privacy of people’s homes, he said.

In many cases, suburban juveniles are charged with possession and sent to treatment and counseling programs, said Jay Meyer, clinical director of the Buffalo Grove-based Omni Youth Services, which counsels teen drug users in the northwest suburbs.

“Kids in the suburbs are given the benefit of the doubt,” said Herschella G. Conyers, a staff attorney with the Mandel clinic. “Kids in the city are given a narrower window.”


In 1985, then-state Sen. William A. Marovitz, a Chicago Democrat, led the charge to create 1,000-foot “safe zones” around schools, increasing penalties for dealing drugs or carrying weapons. Under the Safe Schools Zone Act, adults selling hard drugs, such as cocaine or heroin, would be charged with a Class X felony and face at least six years in prison with no chance for parole. And 15- and 16-year-olds would be tried as adults.

Those selling marijuana would not be affected by the act because they are charged under the Cannabis Control Act.

In 1987, lawmakers folded the school zone law into the Juvenile Court Act, which outlines how courts treat delinquent, abused and neglected children. Two years later, the legislature, overriding a gubernatorial veto, placed safe zones around public housing.

Juvenile justice advocates were troubled by these new restrictions. In 1993, the Chicago chapter of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights filed a lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court, charging that the public housing provision was discriminatory.

To bolster its case, the committee pointed out that in 1992 all 34 juveniles transferred to adult court for drug crimes were black.

On Jan. 22, 1993, Circuit Court Judge Michael Brennan Getty declared the provision unconstitutional. “It is extremely unlikely that Automatic Juvenile Transfer for public housing violations will ever affect any white 15- or 16-year-old from Sauganash, Bridgeport or Arlington Heights,” Getty wrote in his opinion.

The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office appealed the case directly to the Illinois Supreme Court, which unanimously overturned Getty’s ruling in June 1994. The justices ruled that the lawyers committee had failed to show the law was biased or that lawmakers intended it to be discriminatory.

In October 1998, the public defender’s office created the Transfer Advocacy Unit, which centralizes services and collects data on juvenile transfers, Fry said.

Even some prosecutors have urged state legislators to re-examine the automatic transfer law. In 1998, the Cook County State’s Attorney and five other county prosecutors formally asked lawmakers to restrict juvenile transfers to those who who commit aggravated battery with a firearm while sending those charged with drug crimes back to juvenile courts.

Ultimately, legislators decided not to change the provision.

“We want to limit exposure to drugs and the drug culture,” said state Sen. James A. DeLeo (D-Chicago). “Have we solved the problem? No, not yet. But the number of arrests shows that the law is working.”

And this spring, the Illinois House of Representatives passed a measure to create safe zones around day care centers, nursery schools and children’s camps. It was never called for a vote in the State Senate.

But lawmakers should be more careful when transferring teenagers to adult courts, said Marc Schindler, staff attorney for the Youth Law Center, a national public interest law firm. “You are ending their life as a juvenile,” he said.

Women who volunteer at Helen Hefferan School say they are frustrated by the ceaseless drug trade in their neighborhood. They complain that police don’t patrol the streets enough. And when drug dealers are arrested, they often re-appear the next day.

The drug dealers “shouldn’t get off easy,” said Tryie Spurlock. But jailing more teenagers isn’t the answer, added Christine Fair, whose two children attend Hefferan. To some boys in the neighborhood, going to adult prison is a badge of honor, she said, and the police focus on the wrong offenders.

“This is somebody’s baby you’re talking about,” Fair said. “An adult is making the big money. An adult is using these boys.”

Denise Little, Hefferan’s mother hen of a principal, said she would support the safe school zone law if its penalties really shielded her children from harm. But the law hasn’t made much difference, she said.

“It has not deterred the drug trafficking around the school,” Little said. “The kids still see too much.”

On a typical weeknight in the West Side’s Harrison Police District, which includes Hefferan, young men linger on street corners and in apartment vestibules. Every now and then, a car inches through the streets. Police say many drivers are looking for a dealer.

Across the street from Hefferan’s empty, concrete playground, a small group of young men stands under a dark porch, their down jackets buttoned tight against the rain and wind.

“They are working,” says Police Officer Russell Briggs, as he cruises by in his unmarked police car. A few minutes later, he comes back around the corner; all but two of the boys have slipped inside the three-flat building.

On one strip, right off the Eisenhower Expressway, Briggs says, dealers can do a high volume of business. “In a matter of seconds, you can be off the expressway and back on,” he said.

In the Rockwell Gardens public housing development, at Western Avenue between Madison and Adams streets, the sight of Briggs’ car sets off a flurry of activity. The echo of “blow” and “rock”—the drug dealer’s call for cocaine and heroin—fades away. It is replaced by a lone, gruff voice shouting, “Get little on one,” which Briggs explains is a signal that police are nearby, and dealers should withdraw into their apartments.

This area is the epicenter of the automatic transfer law. Of the 58 cases tracked by the Juvenile Transfer Advocacy Unit from October to December, 23 came from the Harrison District. District Commander Dana V. Starks defends the transfer law, saying young men selling drugs destroy a neighborhood’s quality of life. Yet it frustrates him that drug buyers from outside the neighborhood get misdemeanors while dealers are usually charged with felonies.

“If it weren’t for the purchaser, the dealer would not be in business,” he said.

For principal Little, many of these cases hold a note of sadness. On March 15, six subpoenas sat on her desk, each calling her to testify that the defendant was arrested within 1,000 feet of her school.

One of the most heartbreaking cases she remembers involved T.J. and his friend, Carlos Caldwell. The boys’ siblings grew up together, and Carlos and T.J. became friends. Carlos made the Hefferan honor roll in 1995 and graduated last June from Providence St. Mel High School, 119 S. Central Park Ave.

T.J. also was a bright child, and his mother took him out of Hefferan in eighth grade and sent him to Hillside Academy, in west suburban Hillside, to keep him from the bad influences of the neighborhood, Little said.

“What I liked about [T.J.] is that even when he was a behavior problem, he was always respectful,” she said. “He was a leader.”

But police accused him of selling crack cocaine. Drugs were found nearby when he was arrested.

Then, in a separate incident on Jan. 19, Carlos was shot and killed as he left a house across from Hefferan— near where T.J. had allegedly been dealing drugs. He had just turned 19.

Little, whose voice still breaks when talking about Carlos’ death, said sending T.J. to adult prison would be like signing away another life. “He will come out a hardened criminal,” she said. “His tenderness will dissipate.”

T.J.’s mother, Rachel (whose last name is omitted for confidentiality), is fighting the charges against her son, even though a plea agreement might ensure he only gets probation. She said society often gives up too quickly on young black boys. “He is a good kid,” she said. “I would just prefer him to have a clean slate.”

Wilmette Police Community Relations Officer Dan Huck acknowledged that teenagers and adults in his well-to-do north suburban village buy and sell drugs sas much as in any other community. It’s just that he and his colleagues have trouble finding them.

Most teenagers sell to each other and would be wary of strangers trying to buy drugs, he said. “We have had no arrests at the schools. But absolutely, there are drugs in the school. The problem is, how do you catch it? I think here it is a lot more discreet.”

Most drug arrests come when police stop young people for curfew violations or for hanging out in the streets or parks. Wilmette police made 28 arrests for possession of marijuana and eight for hard drugs during 1999, Huck said.

“The socioeconomic factor plays in,” Huck said. “Children are sent to counseling or are sent away to attend a different school. It doesn’t mean that the drug use has stopped.”

Drug use is most prevalent among white teenagers, according to the 1997 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse. The study, by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, found that about 20 percent of whites from ages 12 to 17 reported using marijuana, cocaine or inhalants, compared with 16.5 percent of Latinos and 15.7 percent of blacks.

Eddie Szmergalski, a 27-year-old Mount Prospect tactical officer, does not think drugs are a huge problem in the northwest suburb. In 1999, police arrested 71 people for cannabis and 25 for heroin or cocaine possession or delivery. None were charged with dealing within 1,000 feet of a school.

“I would like to see people treated more severely,” Szmergalski said. “It takes a lot of charges to slow someone down.”

Chris and Leif, two white suburban teens who this winter attended a support group for former drug users at Omni Youth Services, said they were never charged with dealing or possessing drugs, even though they were sellers and users. They only got into trouble with the law when they were charged with breaking curfew, carrying drug paraphernalia and stealing to support their habits.

The smart dealers do not make their transactions on school grounds, Chris said, and many realize they would face harsher penalties if found on or near campus.

Leif, a 16-year-old with a buzz cut, baggy pants and a white Tommy Hilfiger T-shirt, dropped out of school his sophomore year. Leif said he set up drug deals at his high school but preferred to complete them at home.

“Everybody used to buy from me,” he said. “I had a lot of friends and I knew not to sell to someone I didn’t know.”

Omni counselor Karen Fretzin said some school officials don’t take drug use seriously, often hesitating to call police. And parents will hire a private attorney if their teen gets in trouble.

“They want to protect their children, but that may be more damaging,” she said.

Most schools have some illegal drugs passing through their hallways, Fretzin said. And some students do get busted there. Yet she does not know of a single suburban teenager charged as an adult for selling drugs at school.

Leif and Chris are trying to take advantage of their second chances. With no adult felony convictions and the option of expunging their juvenile records when they turn 18, their years of teenage lawlessness could soon be wiped clean.

Leif is back at his old high school, and Chris is pursuing his General Equivalency Degree. Of the 10 teenagers who started the 12-week support group, only Leif finished the program. Chris relapsed during the ninth week and quit soon after.

Staying clean continues to be a struggle for Leif. He spends most weekends shooting pool, excusing himself from partying with his drug-using friends by saying he is on probation.

But at least Leif remains a juvenile in the eyes of the law, advocates say. The teens transferred to adult court aren’t so lucky.

“Imagine being 15 years old and getting three or four years,” said Fry, the Cook County Public Defender. “Now you are 19 years old and missed most of your teenage years. I think that people don’t understand. They throw away these kids.”