Insights & Information

State Representative La Shawn K. Ford is sponsoring an event focused on housing and employment with presentations by the following organizations:

•  US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
• City of Chicago Reentry Services
• The John Marshall Law School, Chicago - Fair Housing
• Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
• Chicago Coaltion for the Homeless
• Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law
• Safer Foundation
• Hughes, Socol, Piers, Resnick, & Dim

September 26, 2012
10:00 AM - 1:00 PM
United for Better Living
4540 W. Washington Blvd
Chicago, IL
Event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Ms. Val at 773-960-9269.

Prairie State College is hosting a criminal justice summit for people with criminal histories (arrest or conviction). The event schedule includes a panel discussion and the opportunity to meet with experts to discuss expungement and sealing, job training and placement, housing support, and substance abuse or mental health services.

November 10, 2012
9:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Prairie State College Conference Center
202 S. Halsted St.

Chicago Heights, IL
Registration begins in early October. For more information, click here.

Winnebago County, Illinois, is accepting applications for the position of Director of the Illinois Center of Excellence. The county was awarded a $260,000 Justice Assistance grant by the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority (ICJIA) to establish the Illinois Center of Excellence for Behavioral Health and Justice to serve the entire state. The mission of the Center is to equip communities to appropriately respond to the needs of persons with behavioral health disorders who are involved in the criminal justice system. The Center will do this by providing technical assistance, resources, and training to improve systemic responses for persons with mental health and/or substance use disorders involved in the criminal justice system. The Center will also compile information about evidence-based practices and conduct research. For more information about the program, click here. For more information about position and required qualification, click here. Posting closes January 30, 2012.

Green For All recently released a report, "Green Strategies to Re-Entry," detailing how formerly incarcerated individuals can find employment in the green industry. Twenty eight percent of Americans have a criminal record of some kind, significantly increasing their likelihood of unemployment and reducing their wages by 11 percent. Forty percent of released inmates return to prison within three years, but vocational training during incarceration and post-release significantly reduces these recidivism rates. Additionally, transitional jobs programs can reduce that rate by 40 percent. The report outlines opportunities and potential of jobs in high demand green sectors, best practices of re-entry programs, and public policies that can promote fair opportunities for people with criminal histories in the emerging green economy. To read more, click here.

Save the date for a summit and press conference on a proposed law to seal additional offenses, increasing the likelihood that ex-offenders can get a second chance at jobs, housing, and education in Illinois.

Saturday, October 29, 2011
9:00AM – 5:00PM
United for Better Living, Inc.
4540 W. Washington Blvd, Chicago, IL
For more info, call 773-738-1480

A new report by the Brennan Center for Justice indicates that state governments across the country have recently enacted an array of new laws making it harder to register or to vote. Two states have reversed earlier reforms and once again disenfranchised millions who have past criminal convictions but who are now taxpaying members of the community. Still others have made it much more difficult for citizens to register to vote, a prerequisite for voting. These new restrictions fall most heavily on young, minority, and low-income voters, as well as on voters with disabilities. The analysis shows that these new laws could make it significantly harder for more than five million eligible voters to cast ballots in 2012. The states that have already cut back on voting rights will provide 171 electoral votes in 2012 (63 percent of the 270 needed to win the presidency). Of the 12 likely battleground states, five have already cut back on voting rights (and may pass additional restrictive legislation), and two more are currently considering new restrictions. To read more of this report, click here.

On September 30, 2011, Governor Quinn appointed Dr. Craig Conover as acting director of the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) and Jean Ortega-Piron as acting director of the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS). Dr. Conover replaces Dr. Damon Arnold, who is leaving IDPH to create a Master's of Public Health degree program at Chicago State University. Dr. Conover has held several positions at IDPH since 2002, currently serving as Illinois’ chief epidemiologist and medical director of the office of health protection, where he is charged with responding to and preventing disease outbreaks. The Governor also appointed Jean Ortega-Piron to serve as acting director at DCFS. Ortega-Piron previously served DCFS as deputy director of guardian and advocacy, acting as guardian for all children committed to DCFS by Illinois’ juvenile courts. She has also been instrumental in state child welfare programs. For more info, click here.

A $250,000 state Adult Redeploy Illinois grant was awarded to the Madison County courts in an effort to improve services to non-violent offenders in the county's alternative courts. The grant, awarded by the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, will help community-based services lower the number of non-violent offenders incarcerated in state prisons. To read the entire article, click here or to learn more about Adult Redeploy Illinois, click here.

On June 10, Jack Cutrone, Executive Director of the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority (ICJIA), awarded a $260,000 federal grant to establish the Illinois Center of Excellence in Mental Health and Justice in Winnebago County. To help address the significant rates of mental health problems and recidivism in justice-involved populations, the center will “promote, coordinate, and provide training to communities looking to implement jail diversion programs and specialty courts for mentally ill and/or substance-abusing offenders, and offenders who are military veterans.” The center will be located at Rockford’s University of Illinois School of Medicine. Satellite programs will also be launched from several University of Illinois sites. To read more in the Park Forest eNews, click here.

This week U.S. Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VA) and Rob Portman (R-OH) introduced legislation to reauthorize the Second Chance Act. First passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in 2008, the law promotes evidence-based programming to aid prisoner reentry and thereby improve public safety. Since the law’s passage 250 grants have been awarded in nearly every state providing substance abuse treatment, employment and mentoring services, among others, to improve the transition from incarceration to communities. The Sentencing Project is supporting Senators Leahy and Portman as they move the Second Chance Reauthorization Act of 2011 quickly through the Judiciary Committee, and encourages supporters to contact their Senators through the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 to urge them to support the continuation of reentry programming. The group has also drafted a letter to leaders in the Senate and House Appropriations Committees asking for full funding of the Second Chance Act in 2012, and urges organizations to please consider signing on. Please contact Kara Gotsch at kgotsch@sentencingproject.org by close of business Friday, June 24 if you would like to do so.