Chicago Appleseed -Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts

Support for SB 1830: Reducing Barriers to Recovery

Updated: February 10, 2023 Illinois has made great strides in reforming its laws and attempting to end mass incarceration, the war on drugs, and other harms caused by the criminal legal system. In January, Illinois made itself a national criminal justice leader by being the first state to com...

New CPD Consent Decree to Guarantee Rights to Communicate for Arrested People

Entered at the end of September 2022, a newly signed consent decree, #LetUseBreathe Collective v. City of Chicago, means people detained by the Chicago Police Department (CPD) must be given access to phones and lawyers in all detention facilities. This measure means to combat the coercive inte...

Call to Support: Creating Opportunity for Illinoisans in Need (COIN II) Act

The statewide Creating Opportunity for Illinoisans in Need (COIN II) Act (IL HB 4423 and IL SB 3123) will increase monthly Temporary Assistance for Families in Need (TANF) grants to 50% of the federal poverty level and will implement a full passthrough and disregard policy for families receiving bot...

Loyola Report Reveals Undue Punitive Effect of Gun Possession Convictions on Young Black Men in Cook County

As the summer ends, gun violence continues to dominate headlines in Chicago; so far this year, there have been over 2,000 people hurt or killed by shootings. As the city continues to grieve and look for effective and equitable solutions to gun issues, the importance of data-driven policymaking is cr...

You Have the Right to Chronically-Underfunded and Overworked Counsel: The need for improved support of public defense in Cook County and beyond.

BACKGROUND The concept of a public defender is relatively modern in the American legal system. For most of U.S. history, being poor meant defense by an attorney was unavailable to you. That all changed, however, in the seminal case, Gideon v. Wainwright, when the Supreme Court found it to be the...

1 2 3 4 … 8