Lake County Wants To Give First Offenders A Second Chance
CHICAGO (CBS) -- The state's attorney in north suburban Lake County wants to give some first-time non-violent offenders a chance to clear their records.
Lake County State's Attorney Michael Nerheim said people make mistakes. WBBM's Jim Gudas reports.
"We've seen certainly in a lot of cases where people quite frankly do stupid things when they are young," Nerheim said.
So for some first-time non-violent offenders charged with misdemeanors, Nerheim's office will offer to delay sentencing in order to give the offenders a chance to pay back their victims or perform community service; and if they've stayed clean and accepted responsibility for their actions, the sentence can be waived and then the offenders can petition to have their convictions purged from their records.
Nerheim said it doesn't always make sense for a person to have a black mark for life because of what he calls something "stupid."