Sentenced for life

By Pauline Day

Lincoln Park High School

Twenty years ago, Jeff Chears, a teenager, made a choice. He refused a plea bargain and went to trial. Found innocent, his record was expunged, and no one could guess he had ever been charged with assault with a deadly weapon.

His friends weren’t as lucky. They accepted the plea bargain, and now it’s a part of their permanent records.

“[My friends] might not have gotten jail time, but they are living jail now.”

According to Illinois state law, any felony conviction of a teenager—age 17 and up—is deemed an “adult” crime by the judge and noted on a public record. For Chears’ friends, applying for a job has become impossible—their own jail sentence.

In the job application process, name, address and educational info have taken a back seat to more personal data. It is the dreaded box that reads “check and explain if you have committed any felonies” that has taken the wheel, and is causing hundreds of teens job searches to crash and burn. By law, applicants are required to check yes, or no, honestly, and with new technologies such as background searches that have been legalized in the job application process, there is no hiding one’s criminal record from the boss.

“They can see everything—from a baby arrest when you were a teenager, to a felony committed as an adult. If you were in the station, they know it,” Chears says. Luckily, Chears was aware of his rights and moved to have his record cleared, but his friends weren’t so savvy and now cringe at the job application process. With felonies on their record, and in light of the current economic crisis, finding a job, or building a career has become a non-starter.

“The only way in is through connections. You will never make it you don’t know anyone,” Chears says.

With nowhere to turn, many of Chears’ friends have had to turn to the very cause of their problem: crime. According to Chears, “They sell drugs now. What else are they going to do?” This often results in them being rearrested, and the vicious cycle continues, highlighting the dismal prospects for previously convicted teenagers in the workplace.

Without a hope for reintegration, teen felons become prey to the “easy money” appeal of crime, slowly losing all hope for a future career, or even future employment.

Robert Aspholm directs a youth employment non-profit organization, MAGIC (Metropolitan Area Group for Igniting Civilization). He argues that convicted teenagers, or even teens with a criminal record, are the ones who need employment “the most.”

“We need to keep pushing programs to train youth for employment, so that they do actually feel like they have a way out,” Aspholm says. “Leaving troubled teens on the street only opens up the possibilities for crime. They need to be working.”

As both unemployment and crime rates rise for teenagers, the big question has become: How do we get troubled teens off the street if we won’t accept them into the work force?

Whose role should it be to solve this problem? Should the government step in?

Should one’s future dreams be silenced due to possibly one mistake made during his developing years? The tough realities faced by Chears’ friends indicate that the thin line between punishment and banishment has become blurred in the American system.

In school we are taught that punishment should be a tool to put you on the right course for the future, to provide a lesson to prevent further wrongdoing and allow for second chances. With young people striking out on employment—thus striking out on their future because of mistakes made during the years they are supposed to be learning right from wrong—the criminal justice system of the United States has failed, and allowed the criminal teenage population to grow.

And yet, the silent question remains to be asked.

What about you?

Would you give a previously convicted teen a second chance? Would you hire them?