Everything we do is collaborative and guided by community initiatives.

Our team of staff and interdisciplinary volunteers provide strategic support of community-led solutions to systemic problems with data and empirical evidence. 

As a nonpartisan research and advocacy organization, we have built long-standing connections with community members, journalists, academics, legislators, and justice system actors; we often organize or are invited to join community-led coalitions, as well as participate in various task forces led by the court system or legislature, to provide research support and legal policy expertise.

COALITION MEMBERSHIPS

Chicago Data Collaborative

The Chicago Data Collaborative is a cooperative effort by newsrooms, academics, and nonprofit researchers to help each other understand our criminal legal system. The group works together to gather and organize data from public agencies in an effort to paint a comprehensive picture of the criminal legal system as a whole.
The Chicago Data Collaborative includes Injustice Watch, DataMade, Invisible Institute, Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts, Lucy Parsons Labs, Metropolitan Planning Council, Northwestern’s Bluhm Legal Clinic, The Chicago Reporter, Adler University, and City Tech Collaborative.
For more information on the Chicago Data Collaborative, you can visit its website.

Coalition to End Fines & Fees

Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts, the Chicago Council of Lawyers, the Exoneration Project, the Chicago Bar Foundation, Cabrini Green Legal Aid, and individual advocates created the Coalition to End Fines and Fees, which helped pass the Criminal and Traffic Assessment Act (CTAA) in 2019 and have continued to advocate for its efficacy.

Coalition to End Money Bond & Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice

The goal of the Coalition to End Money Bond and the Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice (INPJ) is to end wealth-based incarceration and significantly reduce pretrial detention in Illinois.
Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts was a founding member of the Coalition to End Money Bond in 2016; in 2020, the Illinois General Assembly ended money bond in Illinois, effective 2023, and we remain a key partner in helping implement that policy.
The Coalition to End Money Bond is a member of the Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice and includes: ACLU of Illinois, A Just Harvest, Believer’s Bail Out, Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts, Chicago Community Bond Fund, Community Renewal Society, Illinois Justice Project, Chicago Metropolitan Association of the Illinois Conference of the United Church of Christ, Nehemiah Trinity Rising, The Next Movement, Shriver Center of Poverty Law, The People’s Lobby, SOUL, and the Workers Center for Racial Justice.
You can find the website for these coalitions at endmoneybond.org.

Court Transparency Coalition

The Court Transparency Coalition is a group of advocates and journalists who are working together to make Illinois’ judiciary more transparent. Under current law, Illinois Courts — and all entities supervised by our courts, including probation departments, juvenile detention centers, and many other agencies — are not subject to Freedom of Information Act laws the way their counterpart agencies in the executive and legislative branches are. This leads to an unacceptably low level of transparency and data access and makes access to even basic information about the functioning of our courts difficult or impossible.
Nearly all other states have judicial transparency laws; The Court Transparency Coalition seeks administrative and legislative solutions to this problem, so that Illinois can join the rest of the country in having reasonable access to information about our courts. 

End Policing for Profit

The goal of the End Policing for Profit Coalition is to advocate to limit and ultimately end civil forfeiture in Chicago and throughout Illinois.
The Coalition includes Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts, the Chicago Council of Lawyers, the ACLU of Illinois, Lucy Parsons Labs, the Institute for Justice, and several pro bono advocates.