Kim Foxx is the Cook County State’s Attorney. She was born in Chicago and grew up in the Cabrini-Green housing project. She defeated incumbent Anita Alvarez in 2016.
A law passed in 2021 empowered prosecutors to revisit excessive sentences, but so far, only two people have been released. Said one: ‘Two years into it, it’s helped two people?’
Illinois’ prosecutor-initiated resentencing law was supposed to be a progressive policy win. So far, it’s yielded no winners.
Injustice Watch convened a community conversation about systemic inequities in the Cook County courts and possible solutions last month, as part of The Circuit, our ongoing collaborative investigation into two decades of Cook County court data.
As Chicago police have made more gun arrests, prosecutors are taking nearly all cases through the secretive grand jury process, where indictments are close to a sure thing.
Injustice Watch and the Chicago Reader examined the origins of Illinois’s HIV transmission law, how Cook County prosecutors have leveraged it, and its impacts on people charged. The investigation is part of The Circuit, a courts data project from Injustice Watch, the BGA, and DataMade.
Foxx has been an advocate of criminal justice reform and has said she wants to create a Chicago that is more equal.
Data shows people are still being booked into the jail, even as 17 detainees and four correctional officers have tested positive so far for the virus that causes COVID-19.
The state Supreme Court is urged to reform the bail system statewide, ensuring that defendants would not be held in custody awaiting trial only because of their poverty.
Cook County judge Matthew Coghlan is among 62 Cook County judges who will ask voters to retain them for new terms in the November election. But Coghlan has some issues, including a current lawsuit contending he conspired with a disgraced Chicago police detective to frame two men for murder.
Across the country, juvenile offenders are being released from prison based on recognition they are not as mature as adults. In Illinois, many who commit crimes as teenagers are still likely destined to die in custody.