Decarceration & Diversion Archives - Page 3 of 20 - Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts

Statement on State’s Attorney Burke’s New Policy Regarding Pretrial Electronic Monitoring

Written by Austin Segal, Research Manager & Jill Dupont Memorial Fellow, and Naomi Johnson, Co-Executive Director. We strongly oppose State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke’s new policy that requires prosecutors to object on the record in all cases where their petition to detain an accused...

Ignoring Community Voices: Firearm Possession Charges Excluded from Restorative Justice Community Courts

Written by Maya Simkin, Appleseed Network Fellow, Austin Segal, Research Manager & Jill Dupont Memorial Fellow, and Naomi Johnson, Co-Executive Director. It's recently been announced that the Cook County State’s Attorney will no longer divert gun possession cases to the Restorative Justic...

NEW REPORT – Punishing Fear: Facts about the “War on Guns” in Chicago

Today we published a new report, Punishing Fear: Facts about the “War on Guns” in Chicago, which analyzes the policies, processes, and sociocultural realities that have led to the hypercriminalization of gun possession—the “War on Guns,” which parallels the historic War on Drugs and has similarly de...

Statement on RJCC Expansion to Sauk Village

Last month, the Circuit Court of Cook County expanded its Restorative Justice Community Court (RJCC) program into Sauk Village, a suburb just south of Chicago. The new RJCC is the first of its kind in Chicago’s suburbs, joining a line-up of Chicago-based RJCCs in North Lawndale, Avondale, and Englew...

NEW – Restorative Justice, Community, and the Courts: An Analysis of the Impact, Benefits, and Elements “Constantly in Conflict” in Chicago’s Restorative Justice Community Courts

Our new report examines the Circuit Court of Cook County’s three Restorative Justice Community Courts (RJCCs) located in the Avondale (North Side), Englewood (South Side), and North Lawndale (West Side) neighborhoods of Chicago. The North Lawndale court opened in 2017, and Englewood and Avondale fol...