He did nothing wrong, Ozzie Rahman insists, even though last year he and a friend were caught with a stolen motor scooter, arrested, and sent to jail.
The program represents a unique marriage between idealistic social workers and such hardheaded prosecutors as Cook County state’s attorney Jack O’Malley.
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Vehicle for Change was born from necessity as much as compassion. By the late 1980s juvenile court was overflowing with cases, and even prosecutors recognized the pointlessness of mixing terrified first-time offenders with hardened young criminals. It’s funded by a grant from the Illinois Motor Vehicle Theft Prevention Council, a state-appointed group of politicians and insurance executives, and jointly operated by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office and United Charities.
And O’Malley remains very supportive. According to his office, the program does exactly what it’s supposed to do: diverts cases from the system and gives kids a second chance. “Many first-time offenders are not necessarily bad kids,” says Lana Johnson, the state’s attorney’s program supervisor for Vehicle for Change. “They did something stupid or they made a mistake. They need a warning.”
He got his GED, attended two years of junior college, and was working as a gang-intervention counselor when Colleen Jones of United Charities hired him for Vehicle for Change. At least three days a week Lawton, Johnson, and Nisha DeMott, also from the state’s attorney’s office, head over to the juvenile courthouse to meet with arrested car thieves.
If they agree to enroll in the program, the offenders must attend weekly therapy sessions with counselors like Perri. “Some kids really appreciate the chance they have to talk and get things off their chests,” says Perri. “Other kids are just manipulators–they tell you what you want to hear. Some are so good at manipulating that it’s pathological.”
