Field Testing Archives - Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts

Drug Field-Testing As Criminal Justice Reform: Responding to Criticisms in Context

Earlier this month, both The New York Times and The Marshall Project ran excellent stories on how roadside field tests for drugs can return false positives that send innocent people to jail or even cause them to plead guilty when they did not possess drugs. The articles, “How a $2 Roadside Drug Test...

Field Testing in Drug Arrests

Earlier this month, both The New York Times and The Marshall Project ran excellent stories on how a roadside field tests for drugs can return false positives that send innocent people to jail or even cause them to plead guilty when they did not possess drugs. The articles highlighted alarming uses o...

Illinois State Capitol, Photo by Daniel Schwen

Drug Field Testing Bill Passes

Last week, HB0356, a bill establishing a pilot drug field-testing program for the city of Chicago passed both houses of the Illinois legislature. The bill, chiefly sponsored by Representative Zalewski in the House and Senator Harmon in the Senate, was developed in collaboration with Chicago...

Chicago Sun-Times Editorial Supporting Field Testing Bill

Today the Chicago Sun-Times issued an editorial in support of the Field Drug Testing Pilot Bill that Chicago Appleseed was instrumental in developing. The editorial can be found here and previous entries on our blog describing the issue can be found here. The current version of the bill HB3...