Links of Interest for the Week — May 20, 2011

Immigration Court Reform: Human Rights Watch presented testimony to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary about reducing the immigration court backlog through decreasing transfers and providing counsel. Criminal Justice Reform: Chicago Appleseed does not work in the area of prison reform but sev...
May 20, 2011

Diversion Court a Must for Justice and Economy

This article originally appeared at the Huffington Post. Imagine a program that saves Cook County at least $20 million per year while reducing crime, incarceration, and unemployment. This is no fantasy -- it's called diversion court, and Cook County can and should implement it right away. Last fal...
May 13, 2011

How Court-Watching Supports Our Work

To support its mission of research-based advocacy, Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice operates several court-watching programs. Court-watching serves Appleseed’s dual purposes of research and advocacy particularly well and is a central component of all our research into how the courts are functionin...
May 3, 2011

NAACP President and Staunch Conservative Norquist Promote Prison Reform(!)

NAACP President Benjamin Jealous and fierce anti-tax and conservative advocate Grover Norquist have been doing a media tour recently to debate prison reform. The surprise? They’re on the same side of the debate. Jealous and Norquist, who leads the fiscally ultra-conservative group Americans for Tax...
April 15, 2011

Diversion Division: A Remedy for Racially Disproportionate Drug Enforcement

This post originally appeared at the Huffington Post. In Illinois last week, a statutorily mandated, unbiased committee, the Disproportionate Justice Impact Study (DJIS) Commission, reported the latest evidence confirming a long-held suspicion -- that the war on drugs undermines African American...
February 9, 2011