Lori Lightfoot’s Record Shows the Limits of ‘Police Reform’
In various offices across two decades, Mayor Lightfoot has failed to bring change to the Chicago Police Department.
Jerry Iannelli Apr 28, 2021
The Pandemic Prompted Marilyn Mosby to Stop Prosecuting Low-Level Crimes. Will Other D.A.s Follow?
Prosecutors across the country have begun declining low-level cases in an effort to reduce racial inequity and to slow the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Joshua Vaughn Apr 12, 2021
Chicago’s Mayor Turns City’s Infrastructure Into Weapons Against Protesters
When election and racial justice protests rocked the city, Lori Lightfoot used raised bridges and shutdown public transportation as crowd control measures, which harmed the city’s workers.
Maya Dukmasova Nov 13, 2020
Lori Lightfoot’s Actions Don’t Match Her Rhetoric About Police
Like her Democratic mayoral counterparts in Portland, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and New York, Lightfoot has condemned police violence outside her borders, while using law enforcement to suppress demonstrations in her own city.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg Sep 03, 2020
After Recent Unrest, Chicago Leaders Are Pointing Fingers In All The Wrong Places
In difficult moments like this, we can’t let bad faith attacks set our community back. What our families need are resources and investment, not more police on the streets.
Robert Peters Aug 12, 2020
A Man Shot by Chicago Police Is Receiving $10 Million From the City. In 2013, Rahm Emanuel Praised the Officers Responsible.
The former mayor issued a city resolution honoring officers for their ‘bravery’ in a shooting that paralyzed Tarance Etheredge, who will receive a payout from a civil rights lawsuit.
Joshua Vaughn Feb 21, 2020
Uprooting U.S. Torture, Abroad And At Home
Testimony by an architect of the CIA torture program is a reminder of the problem of torture—and health professionals’ complicity—by domestic law enforcement
Vaidya Gullapalli Jan 22, 2020
Illinois Man Alleges Police Illegally Forced Him To Undergo A Strip Search, Rectal Exam
According to a complaint, police in Oak Lawn, a suburb of Chicago, subjected Tylus Allen Jr. to invasive searches, all of which turned up nothing.
Aaron Morrison Dec 19, 2019
Chicago’s Gang Database Can Have ‘Devastating’ Consequences, But There’s No Way To Be Removed From It.
Social media posts, tattoos, or the unvetted word of an officer can lead to inclusion on the list, which is overwhelmingly composed of people of color.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg Dec 18, 2019
Chicago Police Torture: Explained
On Nov. 1, the FBI released a trove of previously undisclosed documents related to a decades-old investigation of police misconduct. In the 1990s, the agency investigated allegations of torture at the hands of Chicago police at the department’s Area 2 headquarters, where heinous acts of violence and psychological abuse were perpetrated against over 100 Black men and women under the supervision of then-commander Jon Burge.
Kelly Hayes Dec 06, 2019
It’s Time to Fight the Democratic Mayors Who Are Champions of the Carceral State
The mayors of New York, Chicago, and San Francisco wrap themselves in the language of progressivism, but when it comes to the criminal legal system they’re Trumpian.
Kelly Hayes Nov 04, 2019
Chicago Police Pointed Guns At And Traumatized Children in Botched Raids, Lawsuits Allege
Children as young as 4 years old are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result, the complaints say.
Lauren Gill Aug 14, 2019
Spending billions on policing, then millions on police misconduct
Spotlights like this one provide original commentary and analysis on pressing criminal justice issues of the day. You can read them each day in our newsletter, The Daily Appeal. In 2017, the coalition Freedom to Thrive looked at the enormous outlay on policing and incarceration across the U.S.—over $180 billion annually—contrasting it with the systemic underinvestment […]
Vaidya Gullapalli Aug 02, 2019
Media Frame: Using Gun Fears to Demagogue Bail Reform
CBS 2 Chicago relied on police voices and irrelevant data to question efforts to end cash bail.
Adam H. Johnson Jun 14, 2019
Spotlight: Will Chicago Get a Memorial to Honor the Survivors of Police Torture?
In 2015, the Chicago City Council passed a reparations ordinance. That ordinance, the first of its kind in the country, was the city’s official acknowledgment that Jon Burge, a Chicago police commander, and detectives under his command, “systematically engaged in acts of torture, physical abuse and coercion of African American men and women at Area […]
Vaidya Gullapalli Jun 12, 2019
It’s Time to Make Chicago Police Pay For Their Misdeeds—Out Of Their Own Budget
Chicago hands out millions in settlements and legal fees for police misconduct. Its newly inaugurated mayor should take a dollar from the department’s budget for every dollar the city spends settling with its victims.
Jonathan Ben-Menachem May 29, 2019