To: Members of the Chicago City Council
Date: June 16, 2026
Re: Opposition to Ordinance Amending Chapter 8-16 (O2023-0005298)
Dear Members of the City Council,
We write to urge you to reject the proposed ordinance amending Chapter 8-16 of the Chicago Municipal Code relating to juvenile conduct and parental responsibility. While the ordinance has been framed as a public safety measure, its penalty scheme is a disproportionate approach to problematic youth behavior that increases the City’s litigation risk.
It is vital to note this proposal was already rejected by the Public Safety Committee, and if it proceeds, will only do so by virtue of Rule 41. While optically this ordinance may seem worthy, the reality is that it has many provisions that will serve to punish families in poverty.
This ordinance dramatically increases penalties for minors – in some cases by 500 times – while also extending liability to parents and guardians, in a way that effectively doubles punishment for families. Under proposed Section 8-16-005, parents or guardians who “knowingly or willfully allow” a minor to engage in covered conduct may be held “as responsible and accountable for the activity of said minor as if they committed the acts themselves.” In practice, this provision transforms every fine imposed on a young person into a second, parallel fine imposed on their household.
This structure will not fall evenly across Chicago communities: it will fall on low-income families who lack the resources to contest citations and hire lawyers. In effect, it converts juvenile ordinance enforcement into a revenue-generating mechanism that extracts payment from households least able to afford it. Consider:
- The ordinance changes many discretionary fines of $500 or less to mandatory $1,000 fines (or more) for things like underage drinking and panhandling
- These are not marginal increases and represent a dramatic shift from discretionary, graduated penalties to rigid, mandatory financial sanctions
- Automatically imposing multi-thousand-dollar debts on children and families is far more likely to bankrupt Chicago’s neediest families than improve public safety
- Mandatory fines, particularly at $1,000 levels – plus another $1,000 in fines to parents, who will also have to pay their child’s fine in practice – needlessly removes the ability of judges and hearing officers to calibrate penalties to the circumstances of an individual case
We are also concerned this ordinance will criminalize poverty and homelessness because it penalizes solicitation or begging by minors, and includes the same doubling of fines by extending liability to parents. Youth and family homelessness is a persistent problem in Chicago and imposing $1,000 fines for panhandling or solicitation only criminalizes survival behavior. The result is that families already struggling economically may be pushed further into instability, and minors without safe housing options may face legal consequences that could follow them for life. Moreover, when this behavior is punished, we are concerned minors will need to look for other ways to survive, making them even more vulnerable to exploitation and violence.
Another collateral consequence is the ordinance’s potential interaction with public benefits and housing eligibility. Parental liability findings tied to municipal ordinance violations can have downstream effects that may bar a family from obtaining public housing, renewing a lease, and being eligible for other public programs they rely on. A $1,000 fine imposed on a minor, plus another $1,000 imposed on their parent, may just be the beginning of a slide into destitution, jeopardizing housing stability for an entire household.
This proposal may also have severe consequences for immigrant families. By exposing parents to criminal liability for a child's conduct, it could subject noncitizen parents to immigration-related harms – including the denial of citizenship applications and, in some circumstances, mandatory detention without bond – for conduct as minor as allowing a child to shoplift a toothbrush.
Above all, this ordinance raises significant constitutional concerns, and may violate the Eighth Amendment ban on excessive fines.1 Imposing mandatory $1,000 fines for conduct such as underage drinking or cannabis possession—without meaningful gradation based on circumstances—creates a strong argument that the penalties are grossly disproportionate to the underlying behavior. This concern is magnified by the parental liability framework, which risks duplicating penalties for families. Indeed, this proposal may make Chicago the most punitive city in the Midwest for underage drinking given the ordinance’s mandatory $1,000 fine. Courts have long scrutinized punitive fines that bear little relationship to individual culpability.
Finally, from a policy standpoint, as written the ordinance is unlikely to improve youth safety or reduce harmful behavior. The behaviors targeted—curfew violations, street gatherings, intoxication, and informal public activity—are often symptoms of a broader lack of structured, safe, and accessible youth programming. Increasing fines does not create alternatives. It simply increases the legal and financial consequences for engaging in unsupervised activity.
Chicago’s challenge is not a lack of punishment tools. It is a lack of preventive tools: recreation centers, mental health services, summer programming, and community engagement. This ordinance does not invest in those systems. In practice, it will lead to more unpaid fines, more poverty, and deeper mistrust between youth communities and law enforcement. For these reasons, we respectfully urge you to vote “no” on this ordinance.
Sincerely,
Daniel J. Schneider
Of Counsel
Legal Action Chicago
200 N. LaSalle St., Suite 1540
Chicago, IL 60601
dschneider@legalactionchicago.org
Sharone R. Mitchell, Jr.
Public Defender of Cook County
Law Office of the Cook County Public Defender
69 West Washington Street
Suite 1600
Chicago, IL 60602
1United States v. Bajakajian, 524 U.S. 321, 325-44 (1998); Pimental v. City of Los Angeles, 115 F.4th 1062, 1074 (9th Cir. 2024) (“[O]ur Eighth Amendment jurisprudence does not allow imposing arbitrary sanctions.”)
Co-signing organizations:
ACLU of Illinois
Brighton Park Neighborhood Council (BPNC)
Cabrini Green Legal Aid (CGLA)
Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts
Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR)
The Chicago Black Voter Project
Chicago Freedom School
Chicago Torture Justice Center
Chicago United Families Coalition (CUFC)
Chicago United Solidarity Project (CUSP)
Chicago Votes
Children's Best Interest Project
Equity and Transformation (EAT)
First Defense Legal Aid (FDLA)
GoodKids MadCity-Englewood
Illinois Alliance for Reentry & Justice (ILARJ)
Illinois Black Advocacy Initiative
Illinois Justice Project
Illinois Prison Project
Impact for Equity
Institute for the Public Good
John Howard Association
Juvenile Justice Initiative
Law Office of the Cook County Public Defender
Legal Action Chicago
Liberation Library
Live Free Illinois
Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM) Chicago Chapter
National Lawyers Guild Chicago
Organized Communities Against Deportations (OCAD)
Parole Illinois
The People’s Lobby
Pilsen Neighbors Community Council
Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation
Prison + Neighborhood Arts/Education Project (PNAP)
Restore Justice
Stick Talk
Southside Together
Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation (SOUL)
Treatment Alternatives for Stronger Communities (TASC)
Unitarian Universalist Prison Ministry of Illinois
Women’s Justice Institute
The Workers Center for Racial Justice
Craig B. Futterman, Clinical Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School