New Court Services Director

In a followup on the Director of Court Services post a month ago (text below), a new director has been announced. From today's News-Gazette:

Champaign County's new director of court services has done it all
A longtime Champaign County employee with lots of different experience in the justice system has been named the county's new director of court services.

Mike Williams, 59, of Champaign has been selected to succeed Joe Gordon, who retires June 29 after 41 years with the probation department, the last 25 as director.

Williams' appointment was made public by Sixth Circuit Chief Judge Rick Broch and Champaign County Presiding Judge Tom Difanis.

More at the full article here. More on the previous director and what the job entails from a previous Cheat Sheet post:

Mary Schenk recently interviewed the Court Services Director with some insight on a few aspects of our local criminal justice system. The News-Gazette website has the article and a link to the interview here.

Legally Speaking: Joe Gordon
In Illinois, the Legislature has mandated that for most crimes, judges should first consider giving an offender a community-based sentence. The job of overseeing people sentenced to probation falls to the Champaign County Probation and Court Services office.

Court Services Director JOE GORDON supervises a staff of about 62 at the Juvenile Detention Center and in adult and juvenile probation at the courthouse...

"With this community, we are very fortunate. We are rich in resources, in comparison to many other communities. The problem we have experienced is not so much the resources not being available. It's more of getting individuals to appear and comply when they are referred."

Regarding mental health resources specifically: "I don't think we have enough for the number of individuals presenting themselves to the court system."

Full article here. Link to the interview audio here.