Illinois Courts Clash: Does Limiting Juvenile Offenders' Social Media Use Step on Free Speech?

The restrictions come as juvenile probation departments across the country have begun to move away from a strictly enforcement approach and more toward rehabilitating defendants, said Marsha Levick, deputy director of the nonprofit Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia. In St. Louis County, Mo., juvenile defendants are required to turn over all their social media identities and passwords to probation officers.

“It’s a tough call,” said Levick about what’s happening in Cook County. “It’s fraught in the climate we’re in right now, it’s fraught in the city of Chicago that’s trying to curb violence … but that doesn’t mean that the Constitution doesn’t still apply.”