Administration

Dr. Miquel Lewis, Acting Director of Juvenile Probation & Court Services / Chief Probation Officer

With a focus on results, Dr. Lewis aims to lead a healthy workforce with passion, humility, and commitment to serve the needs of all court-involved children and families through a sound framework of public safety, equity, and trauma-informed behavior change practice.

• Mission: To serve the Department with professionalism, stewardship, and leadership one interaction at a time.
• Goal: To support the department’s administrative needs in a way that is helpful, professional, and timely.

Carol Braz, Section Chief Probation Officer

The Mission of the Court Services area of operations is to facilitate a young person’s earliest contact with the Juvenile Court system, ensuring the Court has options for a youth’s safe and supported return to the community. The earliest intervention points of a young person’s court involvement are managed in this area of Department operations – Detention Screening, Electronic Monitoring, Reporting Centers, and short-term temporary shelter care. 

Continuous Court Operations (CCO) Units 
The Continuous Court Operations (CCO) Units are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to respond to Detention Screening calls and the EM Alert dashboard. These CCO POs are responsible to maintain coverage for both functions on a consistent basis. 

Reporting Centers
Reporting Centers (RCs) are another detention alternative which allows minors to remain in their homes while awaiting adjudication or pending sentencing. There are currently six (6) Reporting Centers located throughout the County, three in Chicago, two in south suburban Cook County and one in Evanston. 

Saura Center
The Saura Center is a staff-secure shelter-care facility that allows minors to remain in the community with the goal to have minors return to their family, school, and community. The Saura Center may be utilized as a step-down option for minors that may be in the JTDC, or as a non-secure alternative to detention.

Michael Muhammad, Deputy Chief Probation Officer

The goal of Pretrial Services is to create a more equitable and fair approach to providing pretrial services by focusing on a holistic framework that expands our view of public safety and prioritizes upfront investments that enables access to programs, social services, and resources for education, housing, employment, health care, and social-emotional supports without the need for criminalizing or adjudication. We attempt to address pathways to the Juvenile Court system in an effort to eliminate potential further alleged criminal involvement/future arrests. 

Children/youth with pretrial status are entitled to the presumption of innocence, and as such, we must be careful to abide by the principle of recommending the least restrictive conditions, protecting rights to due process, and against self-incrimination. 

Guiding Principles 

• We recognize that youth under pretrial status are presumed innocent.  
• We respect youths' right to liberty and advocate for the least restrictive conditions.  
• We believe that youth should not have to be found guilty of a crime in order to access resources.  
• Pretrial Services staff do NOT ask youth details about their court cases.  
• Youth/families have the right to consult with their attorneys regarding their involvement with Pretrial Services.  
• Information provided by youth/families will be used for the purpose of service linkage and reports to the court to inform a decision to be released from custody to the community or to maintain youth’s ability to remain in the community.  

Services will be recommended to supplement the existing court ordered conditions

The Mission of the Youth Care and Coordination area of operations is to offer guidance to all post-adjudicated youth throughout their probation sentence experience. We are committed to promoting successful outcomes by building relationships and implementing Case planning, Core Correctional Practice and Case Management as the primary areas of focus. Goals set by the youth and family are the building blocks to collaborate and coordinate with community-based service providers to meet their needs while also focusing on building skills.

Tamar Stockley, Section Chief Probation Officer

The Mission of the Supportive Services area of operations is:

• To provide the department with the internal and external communication needed to uphold daily operations of the organization through support, maintenance, and ongoing enhancements of the case management system.
• To provide training and personal development of department staff and facilitate linkage to services for youth and families regardless of sexual orientation, preference, or economic circumstance.
• To generate data and quality management to inform decisions and promote positive outcomes for the youth and families we serve.