drug policy Archives - Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts

Support for SB 1830: Reducing Barriers to Recovery

Updated: February 10, 2023 Illinois has made great strides in reforming its laws and attempting to end mass incarceration, the war on drugs, and other harms caused by the criminal legal system. In January, Illinois made itself a national criminal justice leader by being the first state to com...

REPORT: Reducing Barriers to Recovery — Shifting Low-Level Drug Possession from Felonies to Misdemeanors in Illinois

Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts, the ACLU of Illinois, the Cook County Department of Public Health, and the Illinois Justice Project have released our joint report, Reducing Barriers to Recovery – Shifting Low-Level Drug Possession From Felonies to Misdemeanors in Illinois. Our report provi...

Dynamics of Drug Possession Charges in Illinois, from Investigatory Stops to Sentences

B A C K G R O U N D Illinois is one of 18 states that makes possession of drugs (except cannabis) a felony in all cases. This means that possession, even of very small amounts of drugs, can lead to serious criminal legal system involvement. Felony arrests lead to pretrial jail time, often bec...

Medicaid Expansion and the Access to Community Treatment Court

The fate of the Affordable Care Act and the Medicaid expansion, is uncertain. Illinois was one of the first states to embrace the Medicaid expansion in 2013, and it was instrumental in supporting the Access to Community Treatment court, a project of Chicago Appleseed. The Access to Community Treatm...

Access to Community Treatment Court Celebrates Third Graduation

by Ali Abid, Senior Criminal Justice Policy Analyst at Chicago Appleseed On December 2, 2016, Cook County's Access to Community Treatment (ACT) Court achieved a major milestone by celebrating its third graduation for individuals who successfully completed the problem-solving court program. In tota...

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