Decarceration & Diversion Archives - Page 2 of 20 - Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts

The Results Are In: Forensic Labs Under Prosecutorial Control Are Problematic

UPDATE: September 29, 2025 | A previous version of this post said that if the Board of Commissioners grants the funding request, "the CCSAO would no longer rely on the ISP Crime Lab for forensic support." A representative of the State's Attorney's Office provided the following clarification: "The fo...

NEW—The Impact of the Pretrial Fairness Act on Electronic Monitoring in Cook County: Report

Today, Chicago Appleseed published a new report, The Impact of the Pretrial Fairness Act on Electronic Monitoring in Cook County, examining the impacts of the legislative reforms on Cook County’s pretrial electronic monitoring (EM) system. These reforms, initiated as part of the Pretrial Fairnes...

New Year, New State’s Attorney, Higher Jail Population in Cook County

Written by Julian D. Cohen, Brown University, and Kamiryn Braxton Grimes, University of Chicago. Under Cook County’s new State’s Attorney, Eileen O’Neill Burke, who assumed office in December of 2024, the county has experienced a substantial rise in its jail population. In just the first six...

Open Letter to the Cook County State’s Attorney: Coalition of 136 Organizations and Community Members Oppose the Felony Review Bypass Program

This morning, a group of 38 organizations and 98 community members, including 8 Chicago Police District Councilors, sent an open letter to Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke urging her to end the Felony Review Bypass Program for gun possession cases in Chicago Police Department Distri...

State’s Attorney’s Felony Review Bypass Program Hinders Due Process and Gives Police Power To File Felony Gun Possession Charges

In January, Cook County State’s Attorney O’Neill Burke began piloting a new program in the Chicago Police Department’s (CPD) 7th District (Englewood), changing the rules for how gun possession felony charges are filed. The program has now been expanded to the CPD’s 5th District (Calumet), which is i...

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