Category Archives: Criminal Justice

From media depictions of the criminal legal system, most people seem to understand that when you get arrested, you are allowed a phone call and that phone call can get you a lawyer that will advocate for you during police interrogations. Unfortunately, this is not always the reality – especially in...

On July 21, 2022, attorneys from Northwestern University’s MacArthur Justice Center filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Michael Williams, Daniel Ortiz, and Lucy Parsons Labs against the City of Chicago, Chicago Police Department (CPD) Superintendent David Brown, and several CPD officers. The lawsui...

On August 5, 2022, a federal court held the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) in civil contempt of court for failing to comply with the requirements of a consent decree aimed at improving the unacceptable level of medical care provided to people in IDOC custody. The lawsuit, originally filed...

Electronic monitoring (EM) is a form of incarceration in which a person is ordered to wear an ankle shackle that records their location. In Cook County, the Sheriff runs a pretrial electronic monitoring program that combines location monitoring with house arrest. Individuals charged with crimes—who...

On July 1, 2022, the Pretrial Practices Data Oversight Board (“Board”) released a preliminary report in an effort to satisfy statutory requirements laid out in the Pretrial Fairness Act sections of Public Act 101-0652, known as the SAFE-T Act. Per the new law, the Board, convened last July by the Ad...