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The Criminal Justice Project of Chicago Appleseed is currently working on a proposed model for comprehensive pretrial diversion for the Cook County Felony Courts Division. The proposal centers on the creation of five pilot diversion courtrooms. Current diversion efforts include the State Attorney’s Drug School program, specialty treatment courts within the Circuit Court, a pretrial day reporting center and women’s justice initiative administered by the Sheriff. Each of these individual stakeholder efforts has shown promising results, but the existing programs are limited in scope and thus only reach a fraction of potential defendants. By offering a more broad-based program of pretrial release conditioned on the completion of an individualized treatment program the courts can not only provide increased rehabilitative benefits to offenders but can also free resources that are already spread too thin in the court system. Chicago Appleseed is promoting the creation of that broad based program through the cooperative efforts of the Circuit Court, State Attorney’s Office, Public Defender, Cook County Sheriff, Cook County Probation department and community social service providers.

The current stage of this project is the identification resources currently available in the felony trial process. By researching the best practices of existing diversion programs throughout the country we can propose the allocation of those resources in a model for a large scale pretrial diversion program. This proposal will include an assessment of the current routine process for felony processing, an assessment of current diversion programs, an inventory of current resources both within the court system and from the community, and finally a plan for implementing a comprehensive diversion program using the current resources and discretion available to the criminal justice stakeholders.

While there is universal recognition among the stakeholders of the value of a diversion program, there are always political and economic hurdles to overcome. Reminding our elected officials of the importance of an efficient and effective court system is one way to make sure that our diversion proposal remains a priority. If you would like to help our effort, please take a moment to write a short letter thanking the elected officers who are supporting Chicago Appleseed’s reform efforts and urge them to remain diligent in their effort to create these needed diversion courtrooms. You should address your encouragement to:

The Honorable Timothy C. Evans
Chief Judge
Circuit Court of Cook County
50 W. Washington Street, Suite 2600
Richard J. Daley Center
Chicago, IL 60602

Sheriff Thomas Dart
Cook County Sheriff’s Office
50 W. Washington Street, Room 704
Richard J. Daley Center
Chicago, IL 60602

The Honorable Anita Alvarez
Cook County State Attorney
69 W. Washington Street, Room 500
Richard J. Daley Center
Chicago, IL 60602

The Honorable Abishi Cunningham, Jr.
Cook County Public Defender
69 W. Washington Street, Room 1600
Richard J. Daley Center
Chicago, IL 60602