Category Archives: Criminal Justice

A new report from nationally renowned criminal justice experts at Loyola University Chicago, Don Stemen and David Olson, shows that Cook County’s efforts to reduce the use of money bail and release more people pretrial did not cause any rise in crime.  The report, “Dollars and Sense in Cook...

In 2016, the Illinois Supreme Court’s Statutory Court Fee Task Force released a report finding that the state’s “byzantine system” of court costs, fines, and fees varied wildly by county and disproportionately impacted low-income Illinois residents. These findings pushed forward legislation – the Cr...

As we embark on the ‘third-wave’ of the pandemic in the United States, we have tragically learned many things. First and importantly, we have learned that the best and only truly effective way to prevent the spread of this airborne virus is by physically distancing ourselves from others. We have als...

By Elijah Gelman, Chicago Appleseed Undergraduate Intern In January, Chicago Appleseed Senior Policy Analyst Sarah Staudt discussed the importance of newly proposed legislation cementing the right to counsel for every person arrested in Illinois within one-hour of arrest. Despite it being...