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 Attorney Kim Foxx took office.

When Cook County State’s Attorney (SA) Kim Foxx took office in 2017, she inherited one of the most punitive State’s’ Attorney’s’ Offices (SAO) in the country. During her initial campaign, SA Foxx promised to implement policies to ameliorate mass incarceration and reduce the harm of punitive prosecution in Cook County. Over the last three-and-a-half years, SA Foxx’s administration has made significant progress toward ending the most damaging practices of the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, but more must be done to switch the SAO’s culture to prioritize justice over punishment. 

Since our last report in February 2020 – just before the explosion of the COVID-19 pandemic – Kim Foxx has largely continued her office’s progress toward decarceration. In our most recent report, we discuss trends showing the State’s Attorney’s efforts to reduce the negative impacts of the criminal legal process overall and specifically during the COVID-19 pandemic: 

  • Overall, the number of felony charges filed has continued to fall during SA Foxx’s time in office, with a massive drop in felony charges recently due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The State’s Attorney’s combined rate of “rejection” and “referral for continued investigation” has steadily increased during Foxx’s time in office, reaching an all-time high of 20% in April 2020.
  • SA Foxx has helped steadily decrease the number of people per month who are sentenced to terms of incarceration, which, in February 2020 reached the lowest number of prison sentences in a month since at least 2012.
  • While final dispositions in large portions of protest-related cases are still pending, State’s Attorney Foxx has pushed back publicly and stated a refusal to prosecute any of the 2,300 arrests between May 29 and June 16, 2020 related to peaceful protest activity (over 80% of the arrests were for what the CPD called “civil unrest”). 

Likewise, we examine the areas where more work must be done to improve circumstances in criminal courts – especially related to drug charges, moving cases through the system, and alleviating some hardships of COVID-19. We recommend that the State’s Attorney consider solutions to fast-track open cases, to reduce the court’s backlog of dispositions; immediately re-review the bond status of everyone in the Jail and coordinate with defense counsel to bring agreed motions for release on any person who does not pose a serious risk to someone else’s safety; and take steps to ensure that future decarceration initiatives are clearly and fully communicated to and expected from front-line staff. 

You can find our most recent report and all others at www.ThePeoplesLobbyUSA.org and www.ChicagoAppleseed.org/Criminal-Justice/#CJAC-Prosecutors