Illinois and federal law both allow law enforcement agencies to take cash, land, vehicles and other property they suspect may be involved in illegal activity from people charged with crimes, even if they have not been co... Read more
You wouldn’t think that a parking ticket could lead you to bankruptcy, but in Chicago it happens all the time. Each year the city issues more than 3 million tickets for parking, vehicle compliance and automated traffic... Read more
If you think the criminal justice system is biased and broken, you are right in tune with most voters in Illinois. According to a new poll from Southern Illinois University, 73 percent of state voters, both Democrats and... Read more
Ex-prisoners who earn more money are less likely to return to a life of crime. As a result, it is no surprise that recent research by college professors Amanda Y. Agan of Rutgers and Michael D. Makowsky of Clemson shows ... Read more
If you have been charged with a crime in Illinois, will your treatment and sentence be tainted by the biases of people in the criminal justice system? Unfortunately, human judgment and prejudices enter into every stage o... Read more
The United States imprisons more people than any other country, and as many as one in three American adults have some type of criminal record. Unfortunately, incarceration carries a lifetime of consequences. According ... Read more
Weather can kill, and prisoners are more vulnerable to the effects of extreme weather than most Americans. While some prison systems attempt to keep temperatures within a healthy range, a 2015 In December of 2004, Charl... Read more
When prosecutors abuse their authority, the damage can be devastating, as guilty people may go free while innocent people wind up behind bars. Prosecutors have the duty to uphold justice and the obligation to disclose ... Read more
It says something about crime in Chicago when the Police Department is on pace to spend nearly $200 million on overtime in 2017. This is 40 percent more than last year’s record and is occurring despite a two-year hir... Read more
Illinois prosecutors have a duty to uphold justice, but too often their goal instead becomes winning the case and seeking out the harshest punishment possible. This results in problems such as wrongful convictions and mi... Read more