(Chicago Sun Times) — Last January, Illinois changed from 17 to 18 the age when a person is old enough to be tried as an adult in court for misdemeanor crimes. Although the change is barely a year old, its impact already has been felt. In Kane County, nine months under the new law, 17-year-olds were making up between 10 percent and 30 percent of the Kane County Juvenile Justice Center’s population on any given day. Prior to that, generally, 17-year-olds were sent through the adult court system and ended up with adult probation officers, on electronic home monitoring or in the adult detention center.
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