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
COVID-19 is Spreading Faster Than Ever. Jail Populations are Surging, Too
In many of America’s major cities, the early efforts to reduce incarceration during the pandemic have been reversed.
Jerry Iannelli Feb 03, 2021
Illinois State Lawmakers Vote To Eliminate Cash Bail
The move is part of a broader criminal justice reform bill that also ends prison gerrymandering, and mandates body cameras for all police departments.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg Jan 14, 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
Chicago Lawmakers Push To Build Team Of Emergency Responders Who Aren’t Police
The proposed legislation would expand the city’s public mental healthcare system using funds reallocated from the police budget.
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg Sep 28, 2020
The Enduring, Pernicious Whiteness Of True Crime
White voices and victims dominate the genre, which can skew the perception of what constitutes a crime.
Elon Green Aug 21, 2020
Operation Legend Is Another Attempt to ‘Federalize’ Policing. Organizers Are Pushing Back.
President Trump and the DOJ are funding federal policing programs in cities like Detroit, Chicago, and Baltimore, but advocates say they’re unnecessary, harmful, and ineffective.
Marcia Brown Aug 13, 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
Activists Say Chicago Mayor’s Police Reform Promises Ring Hollow
Mayor Lori Lightfoot has hampered the process of installing a police oversight council, activists say, despite making it a major part of her public safety platform during her mayoral run.
Maya Dukmasova Jun 23, 2020
Amid One Of The Nation’s Worst Coronavirus Outbreaks, A Shortage Of Ankle Monitors Kept Some People In Jail
Advocates question why Chicago judges continued to order people to home detention instead of releasing them on their own recognizance.
Kira Lerner Jun 02, 2020
Dozens Of Reports From Inside Cook County Jail Paint A Grim Picture As COVID-19 Cases Soar
Prisoners say the jail, which has seen more than 800 confirmed cases, is a ‘death trap’ plagued by sanitary issues and a lack of testing. Their testimonies stand at stark odds with the sheriff’s office, which says it is keeping ‘staff and detainees as safe as possible.’
Maya Dukmasova Apr 28, 2020
Policing Coronavirus
As infections and deaths mount, state leaders and law enforcement are turning to tough-on-crime tactics in the face of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Jessica Pishko Apr 07, 2020
Kim Foxx Aims To Rewrite An ‘Inequitable’ Legal Justice System As Challengers Fight To Topple Her
With one term under her belt as Chicago’s top prosecutor, Foxx says she has more work to do to right a system that has been “unfair, and totally unjust.”
Mari Cohen Mar 16, 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
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 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’s Top Prosecutor: Clearing Marijuana Records Will Be ‘Life-Changing’
Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx is partnering with a technology nonprofit to expunge tens of thousands of minor marijuana convictions. Other jurisdictions could follow.
Kira Lerner Aug 30, 2019
Bail Isn’t Supposed to Be a Punishment. Why Does the Media Keep Acting Like it Is?
How high or low bond is isn’t a measure of how severe the state considers a crime.
Adam H. Johnson Aug 28, 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
In Chicago, Rethinking the Link Between Crime and Incarceration
A new report shows that a progressive approach, like the one advanced by Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, can help decrease jail populations—and crime.
Kira Lerner Aug 05, 2019
Media Frame: Chicago ‘Bean’ Graffiti Outrage Prioritizes Property Over People
Outlets ran over 200 articles covering the vandalism. The outsize attention will likely damage young lives.
Adam H. Johnson Jul 11, 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
Video Hearings: The Choice ‘Between Efficiency and Rights’
Many jurisdictions across the country use video instead of holding bail hearings in person, a practice that often leads to dire consequences.
Bryce Covert Jun 05, 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
The Appeal Podcast: Generational Harm, A Hidden Cost of Mass Incarceration
With Chicago activist Celia Colón
Adam H. Johnson May 16, 2019
Chicago is Tracking Kids With GPS Monitors That Can Call and Record Them Without Consent
Cook County has a new contract for juvenile ankle monitors that critics say are an invasion of privacy.
Kira Lerner Apr 08, 2019
As States Look To Cut Jail Populations, Electronic ‘Miniature Prisons’ Are On the Rise
There are more than 2,700 people on electronic monitoring in Cook County, Illinois, alone.
Kira Lerner Feb 28, 2019
Chicago Cop’s Sentence For Killing A Black Teenager Is ‘Exceptionally Short’
Jason Van Dyke’s sentence for the 2014 murder of Laquan McDonald is approximately half the average sentence for a person convicted of second-degree murder in Cook County, Illinois.
Rob Arthur Feb 25, 2019
Justice in America Episode 16: A Conversation with Kim Foxx
Josie and Clint talk to Cook County’s head prosecutor.
Josie Duffy Rice, Clint Smith Feb 20, 2019
For The First Time, A Chicago Judge Could Lose His Seat For Being Too ‘Tough on Crime’
No Cook County judge has lost a retention election in 28 years.
Bryce Covert Nov 05, 2018
The Appeal Podcast: How Activists Brought Down the Most Powerful Man in Chicago
With writer Kelly Hayes.
Adam H. Johnson Oct 11, 2018
One Year After Cook County’s Bail Reform, Court Watchers Say Things Are Getting Worse
Judges are still setting bail at unaffordable levels, and more people are being held without bond.
Bryce Covert Oct 05, 2018
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel Won’t Seek A Third Term. These Movements Are A Big Reason.
Protesters blasting everything from punitive prosecutors to police brutality should be remembered for their role in upsetting the Windy City’s political status quo.
Kelly Hayes Oct 02, 2018
The Appeal Podcast Episode 9: The History––and Promise––of the Bail Abolition Movement
With journalist Bryce Covert.
Adam H. Johnson Jul 26, 2018
The Court Watch Movement Wants To Expose The ‘House of Cards’
Prosecutors and judges across the country are starting to feel eyes on them.
Bryce Covert Jul 16, 2018
Responses to Violence Must Move Beyond Policing
The solution to problems like unsolved homicides, especially in communities of color, cannot be reinvestment in institutions that wage violence against them.
William C. Anderson Jun 19, 2018
FOSTA Backers to Sex Workers: Your Work Can Never Be Safe
On April 11, President Trump signed the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA), legislation that would make it possible to hold the operators of websites criminally and civilly liable if third parties were found to have posted advertisements for prostitution. Days before the legislation was enacted, however, federal authorities seized Backpage.com, essentially locking sex […]
Melissa Gira Grant Apr 24, 2018