Outrage and anger about the cover up of the murder of Laquan McDonald by former State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez, former Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the Chicago Police Department helped Kim Foxx win election as Cook County State’s Attorney in a 2016 landslide.

The People’s Lobby and Reclaim Chicago endorsed Foxx in 2016, and we spoke spoke to tens of thousands of voters about her reform agenda. Since then, we have been working with State’s Attorney Foxx to change the way prosecution happens and to ensure she uses the power of her office to reduce incarceration. There’s still progress to be made, but the results are significant and have been life changing for thousands of people.

Here are a few highlights:

• Foxx has prioritized overturning the convictions of and apologizing to dozens of Black men whom Chicago Police tortured into confessing or falsified evidence in their cases.
• Sentences of incarceration declined 19% during Kim Foxx’s second year in office following policy changes that include increased use of restorative justice courts and probation as well as charging certain crimes — like driving on a suspended license or retail theft — as misdemeanors rather than felonies.
• Prosecutors who work under Kim Foxx — there are about 800 of them! — now have the ability to look at each case and use discretion in filing charges. (Under Anita Alvarez, prosecutors took a “tough on crime” approach, routinely seeking maximum sentences resulting in high rates of incarceration.)

The People’s Lobby, along with the Chicago Appleseed Fund and Reclaim Chicago, has written five in-depth reports on Foxx’s progress reforming the practices of the office.

— Creating a Culture of Fairness and Accountability: Defense attorneys report on Kim Foxx’s progress transforming the priorities of her office (October 2019)

— Sentences of Incarceration Decline Sharply, Public Safety Improves During Kim Foxx’s Second Year in Office (July 2019)

— Exercising Full Powers: Recommendations to Kim Foxx for Addressing Systemic Racism in the Cook County Legal System (January 2019)

— A Step in the Right Direction: Analysis of Felony Prosecution Data in Cook County (May 2018)

— Equal Justice for All: A Report on Kim Foxx’s First Year (December 2017)

Foxx understands that the root causes of most crime and violence, including poverty and lack of mental health services or treatment for substance use disorder, go unaddressed or are made worse through prison sentences. Incarceration disrupts what little security and stability many people have, hurting entire communities by separating parents from children, workers from employment, and caregivers from the people who need them most. The vast majority of people given sentences of incarceration in Cook County are Black and Latinx, so decreasing incarceration is a significant step in fighting racism of the criminal justice system in Cook County.

In her campaign for Cook County State’s Attorney, Kim Foxx also promised a new era of transparency and a “data-driven strategy” to decrease incarceration rates and to begin correcting the longstanding racism and punitiveness of our local criminal justice system. A new data portal released by Foxx’s office in March 2019 provides unprecedented access to information about Cook County felony charges. This is important because felony charges are one of the driving factors of mass incarceration in poor communities, African American communities and other communities color.