Smart Criminal Justice Policies Gain Momentum in Chicago, Cook County

This piece originally appeared at the Huffington Post. County and City officials have taken bold yet prudent steps toward sensible, cost-effective public safety policies. The County has expanded use of electronic monitoring and the City is now considering issuing a fine in lieu of arrest for mariju...
November 3, 2011

More incarceration does not equal less crime.

The ACLU posted a fascinating infographic this week. The above graphic compares the change incarceration rates and the change in crime rates from 1999 to 2009. Illinois' prison population has skyrocketed since 1970, but has not grown considerably in the past decade, as illustrated by this chart pr...
August 18, 2011

Doctors’ Orders: Treat, Don’t Incarcerate, Mentally Ill and Addicts

One of the world’s most respected academic journals, The New England Journal of Medicine, recently published a piece offering a fresh perspective on the US policy of incarcerating drug users and the mentally ill.  “Medicine and the Epidemic of Incarceration” (pdf) takes a public health approach to a...
June 10, 2011
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