Time to Reconvene the Supreme Court Task Force on Court Costs, Fines, and Fees

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...
November 23, 2020

As the Pandemic Rages, the Cook County Jail Population Grows

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...
November 20, 2020

One-Hour Access to Counsel in Police Stationhouses: A Cost-Saving Necessity

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...
October 22, 2020

Prosecutorial Discretion in a Tumultuous Year

Today, Chicago Appleseed, Chicago Council of Lawyers, The People's Lobby, and Reclaim Chicago release "Prosecutorial Discretion in a Tumultuous Year," the seventh report in our series on the impact of prosecutorial discretion on incarceration and punitive punishment in Cook County since State’s Atto...
September 30, 2020