Because 90% of all prisoners in the United States are in state facilities, the work that states are doing to reduce their prison populations is crucial. Attempting to end mass incarceration necessitates realizing this is a situation requiring not one national solution, but fifty state solutions. Below are current state solutions that could be effectively modeled by other states for meaningful reform.
“Everyone knows that’s the case. There has never been the political will to take on the myriad issues that combine to create an environment where violence thrives because the violence is thriving in neighborhoods that, to most, are invisible. Places they know to avoid. Places they choose to ignore, or look down on as beyond saving. “
Chicago Tribune
May 20, 2019
Read More“Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson said in a joint statement, ‘There they go again. The Trump Administration never ceases to amaze, and this is just further proof that they are out of step with the people of Chicago and out of touch with reality. Given the Trump Administration’s stance we are proud to partner with Attorney General [Lisa] Madigan, someone who recognizes that our public safety reforms have public safety benefits, on a consent decree that reflects the input and ideas of residents and officers alike’.“
Chicago Sun Times
October 10, 2018
Read More“Chicago's homicide clearance rate – the percentage of cases in which police arrest or identify a suspect – fell from 17.1 in 2017 to 15.4 during the first six months of 2018, the data shows. If that rate holds through the end of the year, it would be the sixth consecutive annual decline.“
USA Today
September 21, 2018
Read More"These items, be they unattended vehicles or packages, are intended to be stolen. Police typically leave them in high-crime neighborhoods in spots where thieves are most likely to take them. A parked bait car, for instance, would be left in an area where car theft is a problem. Bait devices are rigged with surveillance equipment and tracking devices so that authorities, usually waiting nearby, can quickly catch offenders who make off with them."
Vox
August 7, 2018
Read More"The consent decree includes many of the reforms suggested by the Police Accountability Task Force and U.S. Department of Justice reports, both issued in the wake of the release of the Laquan McDonald shooting video in November 2016. Unlike those suggested reforms, though, the consent decree will come with an independent monitor empowered to track and oversee reforms and a federal judge who can force the city’s hand if it doesn’t implement them."
Chicago Reporter
July 27, 2018
Read More"The malfeasance within the department goes well beyond the activities of isolated crews of rogue officers. In 2015, the Guardian reported that over the previous decade, more than 7,000 people—6,000 of whom were black—had been detained under allegedly abusive conditions at a secret warehouse in the city’s Homan Square neighborhood without access to attorneys or public knowledge of their whereabouts."
Slate
July 16, 2018
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