Convenings
The Illinois Justice Project (ILJP) fosters collaboration on complex legal issues by convening regular seminars, work groups and meetings. The partners involved include adult and youth justice reform advocates, researchers, service providers and government officials. The group includes those who are formerly incarcerated or otherwise impacted by the system. These gatherings tackle pressing issues and collaboratively set a statewide agenda on reform and develop policy solutions that garner broad support.
Major Convenings
The Collaborative
Approximately every 18 months, ILJP hosts The Collaborative, a convening of about 150 stakeholders at the local and state levels, community members and formerly incarcerated individuals advocating criminal legal reform. The Collaborative explores a new topic each year, with the goal of developing rigorous research, discussion, and analysis of policy goals to improve the criminal legal system in partnership with the advocacy, government and policymaking communities.
The 2024 Collaborative, Maximizing the Moment: What are the Next Steps for Reentry in Illinois? was held on April 8. The event featured a keynote speech from Cook County Prosecutor Kim Foxx and a fireside chat with Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.
The daylong event also included panel discussions with those currently taking the lead on reentry policy in Illinois, including one dedicated to those who have experienced incarceration and are now in lead policy positions around the state.
Past Collaborative panel topics have included discussions on solutions to gun violence and how to redirect resources away from incarceration and into communities. In both 2016 and 2020, the Collaborative was designed around the topic of jails and bail reform, exploring the relationship between money bond and public safety. This laid the groundwork for action in 2021, when Illinois became the first state in the country to eliminate cash bail.
Past featured speakers have included Cook County Public Defender Sharone R. Mitchell Jr., Chicago Deputy Mayor Garien Gatewood, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Former Senate President John Cullerton, U.S Senator Richard Durbin, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, Former Governor Pat Quinn, the late Presiding Judge of the Cook County Juvenile Division Michael Toomin, Former U.S. Attorney and current Chief of Staff to Governor Bruce Rauner, Rodger Heaton, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart and numerous members of the Illinois General Assembly.
Journalism Seminars
ILJP designs and hosts seminars to provide Illinois journalists with information about the latest criminal justice research, the impact of reforms, and ongoing efforts in Illinois to change policy and practices. The trainings include information on how to access facts and data about criminal legal system reforms in Illinois.
In September 2023, on the cusp of the implementation of a new pretrial hearing process that included the elimination of a cash bail system, ILJP hosted a seminar for 25 journalists from the state’s major news outlets, providing critical information on how the new court process would work and how they could evaluate it. In April 2024, ILJP convened a group of 30 journalists to examine the state’s prison reentry system and whether it was delivering the support services needed. Both convenings provided data and research, as well as access to subject matter experts – all aimed at assisting them with contextual, important news coverage.
Both seminars were hosted in partnership with Loyola University Chicago’s Center for Criminal Justice.
Major Stakeholders
Juvenile Justice Leadership Council
ILJP staff successfully launched the Illinois Juvenile Justice Leadership Council more than a decade ago to create and support a sustainable locus of leadership and system change among a key group of government and non-government thought leaders and decision-makers working in the youth justice system.
The council seeks to add new perspectives, create substantial personal leverage and broaden the participation from the judicial and law enforcement communities in the ongoing efforts to dramatically change how the legal system responds to youth.
Illinois Supreme Court Justice Joy V. Cunningham, Justice Lisa Holder White, Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice Director Robert Vickery and Illinois Department of Children and Family Services Director Heidi Mueller currently serve as the Leadership Council’s co-chairs. This group meets quarterly in January, April, July and October.
Illinois Reentry Council
Established in March 2021, the Illinois Reentry Council was launched with a charge to bring together those working to create an equitable and effective reentry system that delivers sustained support for those leaving prisons and jails. The Council launched its own website in the Spring of 2023, creating a place for support and networking, not to mention an opportunity to educate the public about the reentry process.
Members include housing experts, criminal legal system reform advocates, service providers, researchers, philanthropists, and those elected and appointed people with authority to change the operation of existing systems. People formerly incarcerated work across the entire IRC, providing their leadership and expertise by co-chairing workgroups and the Council.
Justice 20/20 Network
The Justice 20/20 Network convened in the summer of 2020 in response to the crisis in the American criminal legal system highlighted by the police murder of George Floyd. The purpose was to critically examine the Illinois criminal legal system, identify improvements that could be made and consider how to build a network of people and organizations committed to making those changes. The Justice 20/20 Network has grown into an inclusive committed community of policy advocates, grassroots organizers, community members, those directly impacted by the criminal legal system and new learners who hope to create a world where justice is not reliant on the criminal legal system. The Network relaunched its working groups in the summer of 2024 and added programming focused on public narratives. ILJP is the administrative home of the Network.