Progress Illinois

Chicago's police officers are the city's first line of defense and they deserve our thanks.  That being said, they are also paid with taxpayer dollars and should be expected to withstand public scrutiny.  Yet again and again, the Daley administration has worked to prevent reasonable attempts to create more accountability around the Chicago Police Department (CPD).

As a record number of citizen complaints have flooded the so-called Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA) in recent years, City Hall has fought a legal effort to uncover the names of officers who've received ten or more complaints.  This week, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the Daley administration, denying a petition by journalist Jamie Kalven and 28 aldermen to lift the protective order placed on this list.  Kalven and his lawyers are planning to appeal.  Meanwhile, the aldermen continue to insist the names belong in the public sphere:

"The unwillingness of the Police Department to provide information to public officials about officers whose conduct may be questionable is a real problem," said Ad. Toni Preckwinkle (4th), a leader of the 28 aldermen. [...]

If the names remain secret, [Ald. Joe] Moore [49th Ward] said, "It makes it more difficult to root out officers who may be routinely violating the law. We, in the City Council, have a right to know so we can call upon the Police Department to explain why these officers have so many complaints. That's what public disclosure is all about.

While CPD would like the public to believe that there's an exhaustive review process, the department's own record of ferreting out abusive cops speaks for itself.

Continue reading »

Back in May, Gov. Pat Quinn called for an examination of the policies at Tamms Correctional Center in response to criticism that prisoners are languishing there in solitary confinement -- in some cases for more than a decade -- despite its intended purpose as a short-term incarceration facility.  Those seeking reforms at Tamms have primarily raised concerns about the lack of clear criteria for transfer in and out of the prison.  They have also pointed out that holding inmates in solitary confinement for such long periods of time often creates deep psychological trauma which can pose further problems once they're released back into their communities.

In an extensive article published over the weekend, the Belleview News-Democrat added some valuable reporting to this debate.  Included in their piece is some troubling data, such as the fact that 54 of the 247 inmates have been held there for ten years or more.  Furthermore, 55 were transferred to the facility for committing in-prison assaults "that did not lead to serious injury and can be attributed in some cases to mental illness and a need for self-protection."  The reporters also offer several case studies in how long-term solitary confinement has led to psychological deterioration in certain inmates.  They also interview the first warden at the prison:

[George] Welborn, who retired in 2002, said he never expected inmates to be held at Tamms for 10 years or more.

"I don't lose a lot of sleep over those guys who have been there 10 years ... (but) I think they should have been given the opportunity to go back to a reduced security facility and then, if they screw up again, it's right back to Tamms. It was not intended to be a place where guys would be there for eight to 10 years."

The whole article is worth a read.  Meanwhile, on the same day, the News-Democrat editorial page advocated for instituting more "smart and humane" policies at the prison:

Continue reading »

Last week, the organization Tamms Year Ten held a rally outside Chicago's Thompson Center to highlight the human rights situation at Tamms Correction Facility in downstate Illinois.  It attracted a number of speakers from state and city government, numerous religious leaders, and several individuals with personal experiences to share.  From a press release:

The event demonstrated the strong ecumenical opposition to the use of long-term isolation, and added momentum to the growing movement for reform of the prison. Besides the inhumanity of prolonged isolation, speakers identified the senselessness of spending $67,000 per prisoner per year at Tamms for conditions that induce or worsen mental illnesses, create barriers to reentry, and put Illinois in the international spotlight for human rights abuses.  By comparison, per prisoner costs are $20,736 at Menard, $32,693 at Stateville, and $33,031 at Pontiac where Illinois’ death row is located.

Below is a great video produced by the group:

Here is the list of speakers:

Continue reading »

Rep. Mark Kirk still can't make up his mind about the possibility for running for higher office next year. This morning, the North Shore Republican told WBEZ that he delayed his scheduled announcement in order to see who else enters both the 2010 gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races. In the meantime, he's trying to raise his profile among moderate voters statewide, introducing a bill that would toughen drug trafficking laws for strong marijuana.  Fox Chicago reported on the proposal yesterday, airing a clip of Kirk stating, "This is not your father's marijuana," and warning, "[W]e don't want to create zombie-like kids who can't perform in school or athletically."  Watch it: 

While Kirk's law could be good politics, it's silly policy. High levels of THC might make the effects of the drug slightly stronger, but it's non-toxic to healthy cells or organs (regardless of potency) and is incapable of causing a fatal overdose.

Continue reading »

This is a bizarre proposal:

Nearly 300 Chicago crossing guards, detention aides and traffic control aides could face layoffs next month as their jobs are replaced by city police officers, a union representing those workers said today. [...]

"The police officers make a lot more per hour than the regular Crossing Guards, Detention Aides and Traffic Control Aides." SEIU Local 73 Secretary-Treasurer Matt Brandon said in the news release. "Anytime you're doing something like that, how do you justify it financially?"

"On top of that, the real tradeoff is public safety," Brandon added. "These layoffs would take police off the street at a time when the city's murder rate is already way too high."

On the Local 73 website, Brandon surmises that it might be a ploy to squeeze concessions out of these civilian public-safety employees:

Continue reading »

On Saturday, the Chicago Police Department's computer systems went down for a full 24 hours, according to the Second City Cop blog, which described the entire police force "reverting to paper arrest reports, paper inventories, no fingerprints, no photographs, no anything."  The malfunction also apparently caused the lock-ups to "overfill," as those arrested on petty offenses weren't being processed at the normal clip.  It's reasonable to expect that a prolonged computer "blackout" of this sort would eventually start draining the streets of police officers as more and more of them are stuck filling out hard-copy forms they haven't touched in years (if ever).

Seems like a story worth reporting on, particularly considering it's been less than a month since calls were found to be "disappearing completely" from the city's 911 emergency system. 

So can you find a single news article on it?  I sure can't.

This week, The Chicago Reporter exposed how the Illinois State Police (ISP) has refused to carry out thousands of court-ordered expungements and sealings of individual criminal records. They found that, contrary to judges’ orders, at least 2,700 unwitting Illinois citizens still have a criminal offenses on their records.

In a press release yesterday, Attorney General Lisa Madigan responded with appropriate outrage, describing ISP’s conduct as “an unbelievable defiance of the law.” Indeed, as Roosevelt University legal studies professor Michael Sweig pointed out to the Reporter, the underlying statute was only as good as the people enforcing it:

“You can have all the legislation in the world, but if you’re going to have an agency like the police that’s going to second guess the court, I don’t know how you’re going to stop it and I don’t know how you’re going to guard against it,” he said. “If you can’t get the king to follow the court, that’s a problem.”

So how did ISP manage to ignore so many court orders? The Reporter explains:

Continue reading »

That's how many court orders requiring the Illinois State Police to seal or expunge the records of reformed ex-offenders were ignored between 2004 and 2008, according to an investigation by The Chicago Reporter.  In response to this finding, Attorney General Lisa Madigan appeared before Cook County Circuit Court Judge Paul P. Biebel Jr. today to "begin work on a court mandated compliance and remediation plan to require the State Police to follow the law."  In a statement, Madigan said, "This is a shocking defiance of the law. Ignoring these expungement orders negatively impacts the lives of too many people who deserve a fair opportunity to get a job in order to take care of their families." 

Read the Reporter's summary of the data here.  Their full investigative story will be available tomorrow.

U.S. District Court Judge Robert Gettleman was not a happy camper in court this morning. In a brief hearing, Gettleman reamed Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis -- and, by extension, the Daley administration -- for initially refusing a court order to hand over a list of officers with five or more citizen complaints filed against them since 2000.

With Weis before him, Gettleman asserted that the city’s intransigence “flies in the face of everything this court stands for” and sends the wrong message to citizens as well as the officers who look to the police chief for leadership. Before pondering aloud why this hearing had to take place at all, Gettleman quoted U.S. Appellate Judge Ann Williams, who said during the Robert Sorich trial that “Robin Hood may have been a noble criminal, but he’s still a criminal.”

Gettleman also emphasized that the court was not ruling for wholesale disclosure. As we highlighted last week, the judge only asked the city to disclose the list to the plaintiff’s counsel under protective order, something the city has agreed to in countless other civil rights case. After Gettleman held Weis in contempt of court, the police chief handed over the list late Friday.

Ald. Ed Smith (28th Ward), a vocal critic of Weis’ conduct, said he was surprised the police chief took the position he did, arguing that it sends the wrong message to the community. The plaintiff in the underlying case, Donna Moore, was equally frustrated: “It’s my expectation that [Weis’] paramount responsibility is to the millions of citizens of Chicago, not 1,000 so-called repeat offenders.”

Continue reading »

In the past two weeks, we've written repeatedly about the refusal by Mayor Daley and Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis to hand over the list of "repeat offender" police officers to lawyers suing the city over excessive force allegations.  On Wednesday, a "visibly angry" federal Judge Robert Gettleman found Weis in contempt of court for ignoring an order to produce the list of officers who've received five or more citizen complaints.  Gettleman ordered Weis to appear in court on Monday and face questioning from both the judge himself and the lawyers seeking the documents.  Now the Sun-Times is reporting that Weis caved and has agreed to disclose the list rather than face Gettleman's wrath.

But this doesn't mean we'll be seeing the names anytime soon.  

Continue reading »