Commentary
Analysis: The thing about police unions
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Most unions don’t aggressively shield their members from accountability for murder. Police unions are another story.
Commentary
Amara Enyia: Chicago must defund—not just reform—the police
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“Reform is a perfectly warm, comforting blanket. It is comfortable and sedating. But it also smothers.”
Commentary
Police violence, coronavirus and inequality stealing black lives
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“The police violence and the impact of the pandemic are two sides of the same coin,” writes Susan Smith Richardson, CEO of the Center for Public Integrity.
Commentary
‘I didn’t envision being released in a pandemic’
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Curtis Ferdinand dreamt of freedom for 24 years. But he never imagined getting out of prison at a time like this, amid a public health crisis and unrest.
Commentary
Stripped of dignity: appeals court to weigh mass strip search at women’s prison
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Illinois appeals court should affirm incarcerated peoples’ right to privacy in their own bodies, says Loyola law professor Maria Hawilo.
Commentary
Open letter to Chicago’s top cop: COVID-19 police ‘surge’ terrorizing West Side black communities
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Organizer Richard Wallace says the police department is using force to make black residents follow stay-at-home orders, “regardless of the circumstance.”
Commentary
Federal Court intervenes as the humanitarian crisis in Cook County Jail grows
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The federal judge’s order didn’t go as far as some civil rights advocates had hoped. The ongoing work of pushing for structural change to the criminal justice system must continue.
Commentary
Chicago’s top lawyer defends vigorous, but losing, defense in Wrice civil case
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In response to commentary that the City of Chicago wrongly contested torture of a series of victims by members of disgraced-commander Jon Burge’s crew, the city’s top lawyer writes: “The Department of Law stands with due process and the rule of law. And it stands by its defense against Mr. Wrice’s claims.”
Commentary
Illinois must show compassion when coronavirus hits our elderly prison population
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Advocates for incarcerated people are calling on Illinois correctional officials to protect the state’s older prison population from COVID-19 disease.
Commentary
The Stanley Wrice Jury Returns
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Civil rights lawyer Flint Taylor questions why the Lightfoot administration has hired lawyers who aggressively challenge in court the credibility of defendants’ contentions they were tortured into confessing by members of the crew of former Chicago police commander Jon Burge.