Latest News - Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts

Judicial Discretion in Cook County’s Problem-Solving Courts

Cook County’s problem-solving courts (PSCs) are specialized diversion courts that work with accused people whose mental health conditions and/or substance usage may have contributed to their arrests. The PSCs include Drug Treatment Courts, Veterans Treatment Courts, and Mental Health Courts; in othe...

Supervised Visitation & Safe Exchange Programs: Cook County Centers Provide a “Safe Place” for Families to Connect

When a parent’s fitness is called into question by the court, particularly when there are concerns about intimate partner abuse or other forms of harmful behavior, courts may rely on communities’ supervised visitation programs to ensure that children have the opportunity to maintain contact with the...

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...