“Abigail, a 16-year-old facing a $200 penalty for truancy, missed school again while she waited hours for a prosecutor to call her name. Sophia, a 14-year-old looking at $175 in fines and fees after school security caught her with a vape pen, sat on her mother’s lap.
A boy named Kameron, who had shoved his friend over a Lipton peach iced tea in the school cafeteria, had been cited for violating East Peoria’s municipal code forbidding ‘assault, battery, and affray.’ He didn’t know what that phrase meant; he was 12 years old.” ProPublica and Chicago Tribune: The Price Kids Pay: Schools and police punish students with costly tickets for minor misbehavior. Illinois law bans schools from fining students. So local police are doing it for them.