Chicago Reporter (https://www.chicagoreporter.com/category/key-issue/criminal-justice/page/2/)
Photo by Grace Donnelly
A recent Chicago Tribune investigation relies on incomplete data and cherry-picked anecdotes to attack the work of the Chicago Community Bond Fund and The Bail Project.
In phone interviews with The Chicago Reporter, men inside the jail’s quarantine facility doubt their ability to recover while waiting for their day in court.
New safety measures have been ordered while advocates insist that medical vulnerabilities are being ignored and many remain locked up only because they can’t afford bail.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker is deploying medics from the Illinois National Guard to the Illinois Department of Corrections facility, where advocates have declared a ‘disaster.’
The Chicago Community Bond Fund and dozens of other organizations call to release detainees held because they can’t afford bail and limit new admissions to protect inmates, staff, and the general public.
Federal agency cites collaborative investigation by the Reporter, NPR and the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University which exposed disparities at prisons across the country.
While the Cook County state’s attorney’s office declined to charge two men in the first bond court hearing of the year for low-level marijuana possession, they still spent a night locked up.
While the state’s cannabis regulation bill raises the bar nationally on expungement and ensuring diversity in the new industry, there’s a long way to go in repairing the damage caused by prohibition.
As cannabis becomes legal in more states, religious leaders should be truth-tellers of the racialized history and disparate impact of the war on drugs in recommending how their congregations and communities should respond.
The Special Management Unit is supposed to be an alternative to isolating people who are violent in jail or break the rules, but a recent tour raises questions about how rehabilitative it is, especially for those in need of mental health care.