Latest News - Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts

Pretextual Vehicle Stops—A Pipeline to Police Testilying

Our January 2023 police perjury report convincingly demonstrates that the Chicago Police Department (CPD) has a culture that condones dishonesty, prevalent lying in court (“testilying”) and, false report-writing by police officers. Along with recommendations to improve transparency (some of which ha...

Getting and Posting Bond for Incarcerated Immigrants Increasingly Difficult

The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse published a new report last month analyzing the latest immigration court records including 19,000 bond hearings this year, showing how outcomes for incarcerated immigrants seeking release on bond varied widely between states. Overall, the national a...

Legislative Victory: Fair Probation Drug Testing (SB 1886) Signed into Law!

We are thrilled to announce that SB 1886, the Fair Probation Drug Testing bill sponsored by Illinois State Senator Robert Peters and Representative Lilian Jiménez, has been signed into law by Governor Pritzker! Blanket drug testing doesn’t help people who are on probation succeed. Research shows...

BREAKING: Illinois Supreme Court Affirms Constitutionality of the Pretrial Fairness Act

We are thrilled to share that the Illinois Supreme Court has officially handed down a decision upholding the constitutionality of the Pretrial Fairness Act! The community-led, multi-year effort to end wealth based pretrial jailing as punishment from our legal system has won yet another victory over...

Prison Reform Advocates Call to End Civil Commitment in Illinois

A new report from the Prison Policy Initiative (PPI) focusing on U.S. systems of confinement calls for the end of civil commitment. Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts supports this call. In Illinois, for example, the Department of Corrections (DOC) facilities are overseen by the John...