Thousands of restrictive laws govern people who have been released from prison in the United States, making it difficult for them to find housing, employment and to restart life after they have done their time.
Criminal Justice
Tawana Pope and Nicholas Crayton had their own unexpected journeys and challenges, but continue to push for a better life. Pope is the founder of the nonprofit Diamonds In The Making Outreach and previously had been in and out of jail, struggling with drug and alcohol addiction. Crayton was released from prison just last year from the Life Skills Re-Entry Center.
Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx on Monday announced her office will be dropping its case against Kelly — nearly four years after he was arrested and charged with multiple counts of sexual assault and abuse.
“The circuit court’s decision finding the detention provisions unconstitutional should be reversed,” Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul's office wrote in a brief Thursday.
John Lausch, who has served as U.S. attorney in the Northern District of Illinois since 2017, is planning to leave the office in “early 2023,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced during an unrelated press conference Thursday.
From Driver’s Licenses to Police Body Cams, the SAFE-T Act Contains Much More Than Cash Bail Changes
With the Illinois Supreme Court set to hear oral arguments in March, it will likely be months before justices decide the fate of cashless bail in Illinois. But bail transformation is just one of many provisions contained in the SAFE-T Act.
An agreed motion released Wednesday shows that oral arguments before the Illinois Supreme Court between Attorney General Kwame Raoul and a group of prosecutors challenging the plan to eliminate cash bail will not be held until sometime in March.
On New Year’s Eve, less than 12 hours before cashless bail was to take effect, Illinois Supreme Court justices put the elimination of cash bail in the state on hold indefinitely.
The Illinois Supreme Court on Saturday posted an online notice that it is staying the Pretrial Fairness Act, the law within a broader criminal justice overhaul called the SAFE-T Act, which contains the cashless-bail change. The stay will remain in place until the justices issue a new order.
When the Pretrial Fairness Act, a section of the Illinois SAFE-T Act, goes into effect Jan. 1, those charged in criminal cases in dozens of counties across Illinois will no longer have to pay any cash in order to be released from jail while they wait for their trial.
Chicago taxpayers will pay $1.2 million to settle three lawsuits claiming Chicago police officers committed a wide range of misconduct, including handcuffing an 8-year-old boy for more than 40 minutes during a raid of his family’s home.
A new report from the University of Chicago Law School’s Federal Criminal Justice Clinic shows that locking up pretrial defendants has become the norm in federal court, rather than the exception, as required by law.
In less than a month, Illinois will become the first state in the nation where those arrested for crimes will not have the option of paying cash bail. Instead, whether someone stays in jail as they await trial will be based on a series of metrics used by judges.
U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois John Lausch on the high-profile cases his office is currently working through.
The dispute over the future of the gang database represents the first clash between the Police Department’s leaders and the commission made up of Chicagoans given the authority to set policy for the department in an attempt to restore trust in its operations.
The changes approved last week by Democratic members of the General Assembly is the fourth follow-up bill to the Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today Act, or SAFE-T Act.
