Chicago Justice Podcast

On today’s show, we discuss the connection between racialized policing in the US and the efforts by the right-wing to erase slavery from America’s history. We discuss this with Joseph Flynn, the Executive Director for Equity and Inclusion in the Division of Academic Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and an associate professor of curriculum and instruction at Northern Illinois University. The efforts to rewrite American history are an attempt to prevent Americans from realizing the connection between slavery, Jim Crow laws, the civil rights struggle in the mid-20th century, and policing in communities of color today. Absent this context, it could seem ridiculous for anyone to conclude that the justice system is and has been systemically racist. The right-wing wants everyone to think that the murders of George Floyd and Laquan McDonald are unrelated events. That the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse for his crimes had nothing to do with the fact that America has, since its founding, feared black men and justified just about any action taken by white men against the bodies and lives of black men if the white man was “scared.” The verdict can easily be accepted if you view it from the lens of white supremacy that dictates that black men are nothing more than urban predators who cannot control their most primal urges. We also discuss the epidemic of fear surrounding ethnic studies programs at universities across the country. This fear has been driven by America’s growing underbelly of unsophisticated and fearful residents seeking someone to blame for the struggles in their lives. This makes them ripe for manipulation by the right-wing media machine and politicians who seek to benefit themselves at the expense of their supporters. This wedge serves to empower right-wing elites while simultaneously not only hurting communities of color but also putting the lives and bodies of people of color on the line. Dr. Joseph Flynn's Perspectives on WNIU - Northern Public Radio can be found here.

On today's episode, we feature an interview with Alexandra Block from the ACLU of Illinois about their lawsuit against the Chicago Police Department's highly questionable traffic stop practices. The ACLU alleges that the CPD pulls people over exclusively to search them and their care for drugs and guns. According to their statistics, the CPD's rate of finding guns, drugs, or cause to arrest the person they have pulled over is about 1%. In 2020 the Cook County State's Attorney's Office documented a significant switch in tactics by the CPD from pursuing gun offenders, those who have committed a violent crime with a weapon, to seek those who possess an unregistered gun. In the ACLU lawsuit, they allege that in 2016 the CPD made another switch in tactics from doing large numbers of stops of pedestrians in communities of color to making car stops in never before seen numbers in those same communities. The ACLU calls this just another version of stop and frisk. When combining these two critical data points, it is evident that CPD officials made a concerted effort to change how they fight gun violence and where and how they search for unregistered guns. We also discussed with Alexandra that within a lawsuit filed by a former officer, internal emails were exposed showing high-ranking officers within the department pushing middle management to increase their traffic stop numbers. The emails reveal the pushing of unconstitutional CPD quotas designed to get officers on the street to increase significantly the number of pretextual stops they make. As the ACLU data shows, about 1 in 100 stops results in gun, drugs, or cause for arrest being found. Oddly enough, they also don't result in a ticket being written. Significant proof that traffic safety is not a purpose for the stops.

Today's episode discusses the long history of abuse and mismanagement at the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center (JTDC) with Injustice Watch reporters Kelly Garcia and Carlos Ballesteros. The JTDC has long been a dumping ground for clouted workers in Cook County government who were too incompetent for any other job in the county. This, combined with a seeming refusal of half of those running the facility to see their role as anything less than jailers, has led to a point where over the last decade, report after report has come out on the facility and their treatment of the youth in the facility. Despite these multiple reports of the horrible conditions within the facility, those in charge of running the facility seem unwilling and incapable of making the required changes. The JTDC is under the authority of Cook County Court Chief Judge Timothy Evans. One of the reports trashing the facility came from a committee he put together, and still, no significant change has come to the JTDC. We will discuss these issues and discuss Injustice Watch's reporting on the JTDC with Kelly and Carlos.

Despite promises to the contrary by the Chicago Police Department and the agencies that make up the police accountability system in Chicago, lying while undertaking your official duties as an officer isn't taken all that seriously. The CPD's rule 14 bars any officer from knowingly submitting a written or oral false report. In other words, they are not supposed to lie. A recent report issued by the Chicago Inspector General's office details how the CPD and the police accountability system are utterly inconsistent in how they respond to officers lying in their official duties. While all the agencies talk publicly about the importance of integrity and truthfulness, they are not taking violations of rule 14 anywhere as seriously as they want people to believe they are. The integrity of the CPD and the police accountability system is vital to building trust between communities and the CPD. Despite this reality, the Office of Inspector General's Public Safety section continues to churn out report after report demonstrating how little attention the agencies pay toward accountability. Today's episode discusses these issues with Chicago's Inspector General Deborah Witzburg.

On today's show we attempt to bring facts and science to the discuss around the Pre-Trail Fairness Act (PTFA) and the state of electronic monitoring (EM) in the Cook County criminal justice system. We were honored to sit down with Kareem Butler, a pretrial justice fellow at the Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts, to discuss these vital issues. The hyperbolic response to bail reform in Cook County and the subsequent passage of the PTFA by the Illinois General Assembly having nothing to do with the reality of what the efforts mean for communities throughout the state but are all about an ideology that cannot come to terms with the need for the justice system to treat every equitably. The response is also often based in deep hatred and fundamental distrust of the poor. This is why those bothered by both efforts are so upset that the poor can spend their pre-trial time out on the street just like those with the same charges but with the money to bond themselves out of jail. Butler demonstrates a deep understanding of the issue and is able to highlight the hypocrisy in the responses to these efforts. Also, Butler is very good at bringing the data to back up his perspective. This is a fundamentally opposite position of the alt right in Chicago whose don't need any evidence to support their beliefs. It is clear what Butler and his organization is advocating for is evidence based decision making in pre-trial assessment of the risk a potential defendant poses and for a system where there is not two different pre-trial detention policies for the rich and the poor. Butler also provides insight in to just how in true Cook County disorganized fashion the EM systems have two masters. One being the Cook County Sheriff's Office headed by political animal Tom Dart and the other being Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans. Neither office has a reputation being a really well run office free from political influence in their decisions. This should scare anyone that is concerned about the appropriateness of how these two EM systems are administered.

On the show today we sit down with Raina Lipsitz to discuss America's problem with justice reform and how cities like Chicago are caught in endless cycle of failure when it comes to passing meaningful justice reform. A meaningful conversation to engage in now as Mayor Lightfoot's time in office has ended with a pretty dismal record on justice reform including endlessly scapegoating judges as being to lenient despite all the scientific evidence to the contrary. Lipsitz in an article published last summer in The Crime Report discusses a couple national level examples including Philadelphia's progressive District Attorney Larry Krasner & New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Adams has proven to be pretty retrograde on his policing and justice policies according to Lipsitz including moving to reopen Riker's jail despite the unprecedented evidence of the harm the jail is causing inmates. Krasner for his part has stayed pretty true to his politics and even won reelection despite the alt right's complaints about his policies. This discussion is very timely as Brandon Johnson starts his first days in office his spokesman already started to flip flop on whether Johnson would be reopening the mental health clinics that he promised so thoroughly during his campaign. Johnson is not alone just about every mayor for at least the last three decades has in one form or another campaigned on doing something about the abuse of the Chicago police and then never really do anything about that abuse once they get in to office. Lipsitz in her piece so perfectly explains how Chicago liberals want to think they are for true justice reform but when in power they always bail on those plans. They don't want what happened to Kim Foxx to happen to them. Raina Lipsitz is the author of The Rise of a New Left: How Young Radicals Are Shaping the Future of American Politics, published from Verso. Her work has appeared in Al Jazeera America, The Appeal, The Atlantic, The Nation, and The New Republic, among other publications. We are talking to her today about a piece she wrote last July in The Crime Report: Breaking the ‘Toxic Cycle’ of Fear Over Justice Reform.

The Adam Toledo shooting while a massive tragedy was not out of line with Chicago Police Department guidelines and so the firing of Eric Stillman smells like politics. Despite how the video of this shooting has been exploiting repeatedly for political purposes the reality is that tragic police shootings can occur and those shootings can also be inline with CPD guidelines. The fervor over the shooting of Toledo makes sense as nobody really wants to see children die at the hands of anyone, especially law enforcement. This fact however does not allow people to say the shooting of Toledo is unjustified just because of Adam's age without considering the facts involved in the shooting. This also goes for the fact that the gun shot identifying technology ShotSpotter that did properly identify the shooting and altered officers to respond does not make the shooting unjustified. The technology is unproven and while we remain critical of the use of such technologies in this case it seems to have worked. The reality is that it seems like Interim Superintendent Eric Carter is moving to fire Stillman for political reasons and not because of misconduct. If this is the case then this is going to support the conspiracy theories the CPD rank and file have about the CPD's leadership and the police accountability system as a whole. It also means that one more time Toledo's death is being exploited for personal gain. It is a Chicago tradition unfortunately. 23PB3025ChargesDownload

Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx has announced that after two terms in office she will not be running for re-election in the fall of 2024. On today's show we will provide our quick response to Foxx deciding to end her political career and provide some insight on what brought us to this point. It is very hard for progressive politicians to bring in the changes they campaign on because of the vitriolic response from centrists and conservatives. In the post 2016 presidential election that gave air to the alt right this has become much harder. The bar is raised to such a degree that the slightest mistake or transgression is seized upon and can be career ending. In the case of Foxx her mistake was so big that it probably would have caused even the most conservative prosecutor their next election. Of course I am talking about the deal that Foxx executed in one of Chicago's stupidest scandals ever, the Jussie Smollett case. The fact that the case was charged in the manner it was originally shows you just how dysfunctional it has been but that does not absolve Foxx of her responsibility of totally bumbling probably the highest profile (yet stupidest) case her office would handle in her two terms. The reality is that the reaction to the progressive reforms that Foxx put forward like bail reform and her changes to not charging people for retail theft unless in access of a $1,000 was stolen were completely baseless. The criticisms were put forward from the alt right in Chicago, a mayor who has a PhD in pointing finger at other, and a police superintendent with a history of lying during an internal misconduct investigation. Not a credible bunch at all.

On today's show we discuss the new process for how a new superintendent (supt) for the Chicago Police Department gets selected. With the creation of the new Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability the process is slightly different from the last time a new supt was selected. In years past the Chicago Police Board would select 3 candidates for the job of supt and send that list to the mayor. Legally it seemed the mayor was forced to either selected his/her pick from that list or return the entire list to the Board for the to select a new slate of candidates. Historically mayors have just ignored the Board's selections and hired their own choice for supt. It seems like Mayor Lightfoot did choose from the list provided but it has been reported that the Board knew that the Mayor had a person in mind so they made sure to put that candidate on their short list. Now the selection process for a new supt is run by the Commission. There certainly seems like there Is potential for real change. However, some recent comments by the Commission's interim President Anthony Driver Jr have me a little worried about the potential for real change. Driver Jr was recently quoted talking about how rank and file officers didn't feel that former Superintendent David Brown had their backs. Driver Jr serving as a megaphone for alt right rhetoric that comes straight from the alt right leadership of the Fraternal Order of Police is very concerning. Driver Jr seems to think that they are going to find some one for the position of supt that cannot unite the alt right of the department, with the residents of Chicago concerned about police misconduct, and policymakers in to a united front to fight crime and violence in Chicago. Obviously this is folly. The fact that his is coming from the person leading the organization that is selecting the candidates to be the next supt is very, very concerning.

On today's episode I am going to give you my very initial thoughts on the Brandon Johnson victory in the Chicago mayoral runoff election as it pertains to police reform issues. The majority of the mayoral field ran primarily on the issue of crime and violence being out of control in Chicago. If you are thinking that black "progressive" alderpeople who jumped in the race wouldn't do that you would be wrong. Instead it was a chorus signing the tride but true 1980s ear rhetoric about the need for more police officers and that each individual candidate was the only person who could bring crime under control. While these tactics seemed to be affective against Mayor Lightfoot those same types of critiques against a far more progressive in rhetoric candidate Johnson didn't seem to work as well. There is little doubt in my mind that Paul Vallas tried the Bob Fioretti plan where he was going to try to be a candidate for every possible constituency in the city, and many that couldn't even vote in this election. Over the last several years he has certainly grown publicly closer to the MAGA and alt right both in Chicago and throughout Illinois. As Illinois grows more and more democratic this strategy has always seemed odd to me. Attempting a mayoral run in Chicago after doing this is puzzling for sure. Unfortunately for Vallas he continued to do this during the campaign. There is no doubt given the margin of about 17,000 votes his move right probably played a more important role then we will ever understand in his loss. As for what we should expect from Johnson I am think reformers should not expect major changes in the first budget. There just isn't enough time. When Johnson starts to make changes I am hoping he roles our a crisis response system that removes officers from responding to 911 calls that don't require them to be there. This would allow the city to staff a response with mental health professionals, medical personnel, and social workers. This among all the reforms Johnson could bring in would probably do the most to help repair the relationship between the community and the police department.

On today's pod we discuss the alleged reasoning behind Chicago CRED's founder & leader Arne Duncan's endorsement of Paul Vallas for mayor. Later we also discuss the Chicago Tribune's editorial comparing Donald Trump & Jussie Smollett. We know about Duncan's endorsement because Duncan authored an OpEd in the Chicago Tribune announcing it. While we are not going to judge the endorsement itself other than to say we believe nonprofit leaders are and should be barred from engaging in any type of political involvement including endorsements. This is why we find what Duncan has done and the method he has done it to be completely distasteful but inline with his Chicago machine roots. The outrageous and completely unbelievable reasoning behind this endorsement is that Duncan says because Paul Vallas has a wife who is former police officer and that his son is a current officer makes him the perfect person to make the Fraternal Order of Police, the main police union in Chicago, swallow reforms. If you are thinking this is totally bat shit crazy you are not alone. This would require Duncan to be so naive that the alt right extremist FOP leadership did not have a conversation with Vallas about reversing reforms already put in to place and limiting whatever he might bring forward during his administration. The FOP leadership is awful & full of hatred but they are not that dumb. That conversation definitely took place. Duncan knows this but used this bull shit reasoning anyways. The weird thing is Chicago CRED's reforms that they support as an organization are very aligned with Brandon Johnson's stated reform goals. They are also very far from the unleash the police rhetoric of Vallas. Also on the show today we discuss a really bad OpEd by the Tribune's Editorial Board comparing Donald Trump to Jussie Smollett. While they are aligned in that they are both proven liars there is nothing else that connects them. However, in the OpEd itself the Tribune reveals the real reason they have pushed so hard for Smollett to be put in prison and it is pretty ridiculous for the small government hypocrites.

The coverage of the runoff in the race for mayor and the intense focus on crime and criminal justice matters exposes bias in the Chicago Tribune and the reporters. In the article we discuss today there are massive assumptions embedded in the article that are presented as facts by the two authors. Also embedded in the article if you look closely are topics for which Chicago journalists continue to fail the public by not making the candidates for mayor provide specific answers to pointed follow up questions regarding their policies. The rhetoric coming from the Vallas campaign about proactive policing and removing restrictions on police foot and car pursuits so they can get the criminals sounds good in a commercial but journalists should be forcing both candidates to provide specifics about their policies so experts can weigh in on what science tells us about the potential impact of their policies. All people of color should be scared of a Chicago Police Department unchained by the accountability system and free to do whatever is needed to get the job done. If anyone remembers what the Special Operations Section (SOS) street unit was doing under Phil Cline imagine that but department wide. It will be like dropping a nuclear bomb in police community relations building efforts. For his part Brandon Johnson is providing more specifics about his plans than Vallas. He is for building up a citywide crisis response to 911 calls involving mental health and drugs that do not require an armed officer to respond. He has also said he will not commit to hiring additional officers to the department and instead wants to invest that money into programs that will have longer-term success. He has backed off of to some degree his support for defunding the police. I think with Johnson he has strategically decided to talk in more nuance about the programs he would fund by diverting police budgets rather that the general defund concepts.

This week we take the first of what will be many looks at soon to be former Chicago Police Department Superintendent David Brown and his time in Chicago. Unfortunately for Chicago despite the Mayor's glowing endorsement and hiring of Brown the reality is that the Lightfoot administration was engaged in a conspiracy with Brown to hide his misconduct while a member of the Dallas Police Department. Their lack of transparency and integrity about this issue was emblematic of Brown's time with the CPD. Brown is skilled at co-opting the language of reformers and accountability advocates for his own ends. He probably said the words of transparency & accountability more than any former superintendent but in reality nothing changed on the ground. Brown came in to the CPD while the department was in the early stages of a federal consent decree that mandates specific reforms. He also took over the department immediately after the Mayor herself brought in former Los Angeles Police Department Chief Charlie Beck to kick-start transforming the CPD in to a 21st century police department. Instead of continuing the reforms Beck had implemented Brown reversed them. The Mayor voiced support for Brown's reversals despite making reforming the CPD a key part of her campaign. No evaluation of Brown or Lighfoot's time in power in Chicago can be done absent the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the murder of George Floyd. Both played a major part in shaping the circumstances of their time in power. Unfortunately for both of them Brown completely misread the intelligence regarding the protests sweeping the country in response to Floyd's murder. This was the same intelligence both the Cook County Sheriff and Illinois State Police read and knew protests were coming to Chicago. The pandemic alone may have doomed them but the failure of the CPD to have a professional response to the protests was probably the nail in the coffin for both Brown & Lightfoot. Become a CJP Patron: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=13274454 Get Involved: https://www.cjpnation.org Find out more about our work: https://chicagojustice.org/

Mayor Lightfoot just lost re-election and now stands as the first mayor in forty years to fail to lose re-election after their first term in office. Her is our quick reaction to her loss. There is little doubt that the reaction to to Mayor Lightfoot from the beginning was based partially on her race, gender, and sexuality. There is also little doubt that her style of governance and lack of relationship building skills contributed significantly to her downfall. Mayor Lightfoot has a propensity to always think she is the smartest person in the room and make important decisions without taking time to think things through. Her reaction to the protests to George Floyd's murder and their demands to defund the police are a prime example. Instead of coming up with a strategy to show compassion and engage the protestors she immediately came out and denounced the protests and dismissed their calls. She should have engaged protestors in discussions around what it would look like to create a new public safety agency and build alternative responses to 911 calls that don't involve the police. This was the easy and smart move. But the Mayor chose to be dismissive in her patented style which only through gas on the flames instead of working to douse them. For some reason the Mayor picked David Brown to be her Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department despite his track record of lying during internal investigations and police policies from the strong age. This hurt her politically as Brown's tenure basically turned in to one big disgrace as he is as good at building and maintaining relationships as she is. We are now left with a run off election for the mayor's office between Paul Vallas, who is alt right when it comes to policing, and Brandon Johnson, who sounds progressive on police reform but has little real record to show voters. These candidates are starkly different on police reform like Chicago probably never really has had before. Time will tell who wins.

An interesting piece of research documenting in their own words how some practitioners in Illinois' justice system use jail. While the research on the uses of jail throughout Illinois vary there seems to be a thread that the use is regularly extrajudicial and goes well beyond the legal purposes of jail and bail. The goal of the report was to seek out how practitioners use jail and why they seem to be against the Pretrial Fairness Act (PFTA). While the report does shed light on how sheriffs and prosecutors, mostly rural, use jail they don't really ask any followup questions that I believe would have shed immeasurable more light on the injustices in their practices. The article quotes officials talking about how they jail people to address countless social problems that are way out of the purview of their offices and the justice system as a whole. This ranges from using jail to address homelessness in the short term and a person in crisis, however the type of crisis that is being addressed is not defined. Now they practitioners also admitted they use jail as a way to pressure defendants to work out a plea bargain. The authors detail how outside of Cook County the percentage of felony cases that result in a plea bargain is 97% while in Cook County that rate is nearly 87%. These are disturbing figures especially when you consider just how broken and incompetent the justice system in large cities with official oversight is not to mention how bad rural justice systems must be with no meaningful accountability mechanisms built in to their systems. It is pretty clear that practitioners from around Illinois are using the mechanisms of the justice system to inflict massive violations of constitutional and human rights. Their arguement against the PTFA is actually just an argument in favor of letting them continue their illicit practices that by the benefits them politically also.

The police accountability system in Chicago just provided all of us more examples of just how broken the system really is. It is a system I have spent over 25 years trying to reform but unfortunately the system cannot seem to provide the Chicago Police Department the oversight and accountability that has been so desperately needed in Chicago. On today's show we take a look at a recent example where the failures of this system has provided an avenue for an officer to continue his career as a police officer despite demonstrating horrendously bad judgment while off duty drunk and armed. Instead of firing the officer they instead sought a mediated settlement of a 180 suspension. This allowed the officer to get a job with a suburban department after serving his suspension instead of being removed from the profession completely. For some reason being drunk off duty, armed, getting in to a fight, and losing control of your gun in the fight is not something the system deems serious enough to remove the officer from the profession. In last week's show we talked with Chicago Inspector General Deborah Witzburg and the failure of the system to fire two officers affiliated with the white supremacist organizations of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. Unfortunately this pattern of incompetence and lack of aggressiveness is not new to this version of the system but instead endemic of how it has operated since it was created. Also on today's show we discuss an oddly framed article about CPD Superintendent David Brown aging out at the department this spring which was instead framed with intrigue as to whether or not he will stay on despite the fact that all the mayoral contenders say they will not keep him on. We also discuss the need for listeners to vote for their district council seats in the upcoming elections as the alt right in Chicago is organizing and running the exact people you would expect them to run. Get Involved: www.cjpnation.org Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=13274454

On today's show we feature a interview with Chicago Inspector General Deborah Witzburg discussing the case of Chicago's Proud Boys cop. As it has been reported in Chicago the Bureau of Internal Affairs had two chances to fire a Chicago Police officer who was associating both in person and online with the white supremacist organization known as the Proud Boys. Officer Robert Bakker failed to report to the CPD that he had been questions by the FBI about his involvement with an organization known as the Proud Boys. When questioned by BIA Bakker gave "contradictory" and "misleading" statements about his involvement with the organization and the fact that he was questioned by the FBI. In their original set of findings BIA only suspended Bakker 5 days for his statements and his failure to report his being questioned by the FBI. After the Office of Inspector General reviewed the closed investigation as they are required to do by law they referred the case back to BIA because in their opinion the investigation was not thorough. BIA then sustained charges against Bakker for new allegations but not for his involvement in the organization or for submitting a false report which would have been enough to move to fire Bakker. As Witzburg details the CPD also had an opportunity to fire an officer who admitted to being a member of the Oath Keepers. They also declined to fire this officer. Not the best time for police accountability in Chicago. When being involved with the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers brings you a slap on the wrist in Chicago's police accountability system it certainly seems that there needs to be accountability for accountability system. This comes at time when Mayor Lightfoot and Superintendent David Brown are trying to tell the public that the CPD is making progress on the reforms mandated by the consent decree. Not sure what reform would be more fundamental than firing cops for associations with white supremacist organizations.

On today's show we sit down with 33rd Ward Alderwoman Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez to discuss her efforts to get Chicago to implement true crisis response that doesn't involve the Chicago Police Department. While focusing mainly on her ordinance we also get a little politics in given it is the season as Chicago's elections will be held in just a few weeks. In response to protests stemming from the murder of George Floyd cities around the country started to test out and implement a form of crisis response to 911 calls that doesn't involve sending uniformed officers with guns to the scene. The idea is that the mere presence of the badge and gun escalates the situation. It also takes in to account that officers are not trained nor equipped to properly deal with people in mental health crisis or who are under the influence of drugs or alcohol but haven't yet become violence. Chicago under Mayor Lightfoot did indeed create a few pilot programs in a couple of districts Mayor Lightfoot demanded that those pilots include an officer among the responders. This is something our guest and the three decades of evidence in Eugene, OR shows that is not the way to do it. Crisis response is not something new to the US. The CAHOOTS crisis response program has been active since 1988. CAHOOTS has demonstrated that crisis response can be successful over three decades it is just that Mayor Lightfoot either decided to ignore the evidence or just thought she knew better than everyone else. This is a common issue with people who always think they are the smartest person in the room. Alderwoman Rodriguez Sanchez has introduced an ordinance called Treatment not Trauma that focuses on crisis response. We will be talking in-depth about the ordinance and Mayor Lightfoot's response.

On today's episode we sit down with Susan Lee who is currently Chief of Strategy and Policy at Chicago CRED but was previously Deputy Mayor for Public Safety under the Lightfoot administration. Lee is known as an expert on violence prevention and was doing this same work in Los Angeles before coming to Chicago. Lee was brought in to city government to try to help build a more robust and coordinated anti-violence effort from a position within the Mayor's office. Leaked emails have demonstrated that anti-violence partners that Lee had helped organize were complaining about the rhetoric being used by Mayor Lightfoot and Superintendent Brown regarding their criticism of bail reform. Rhetoric both continue to use despite the facts. It is believed that this very rhetoric lead Lee to leave the Mayor's office and return to her work with Chicago CRED. Our conversation today goes deep in to the work of the organizations working everyday in Chicago to prevent violence from occurring. Chicago CRED is just one of many organizations working on violence prevention. They are routinely underfunded and left to deal with the repercussions of failed city policies. For decades the city has continued to remove resources from the most under served communities and left organizations trying to do this work to pick up the pieces. Lee's work is very important because to some degree these organizations are the only ones trying to make a difference in these communities. We also discuss Lee's recent OpEd in the Chicago Tribune on how reform of the Chicago Police Department hangs by a thread. This OpEd was in response to Superintendent David Brown's firing of Robert Boik who was head of the office that was directing reform efforts. A move not inline with the rhetoric on reform coming from Mayor Lightfoot or Superintendent Brown.

On today's episode we feature a discussion about the real cost of the Chicago Police Department and how the City of Chicago uses corrupt budget practices to hide some of the cost from taxpayers and the media. These practices are not new to the city but Mayor Lightfoot's administration has done nothing to correct them. Thus, like other corrupt mayors before her she hides the true cost from taxpayers. Trying to figure out exactly how much the city spends on the Chicago Police Department is almost impossible unless you have significant experience deciphering budgets for a living. Thankfully, Jonathan Silverstein took the time to comb through the city's budget and parse out the hidden costs associated with operating the CPD. Jonathan is a Management Analyst with the City of Evanston, IL during the day. Jonathan has experience with Chicago budgets as he worked both in an alderperson's office and at the City Council Office of Financial Analysis. The politics around how much policing in the city costs taxpayers has always be fraught. On one side you have the Fraternal Order of Police always demanding the city spend more and more on police while leftists in Chicago question the spending and would rather put those costs towards addressing root causes. In his research Jonathan details how the city uses a dumping ground within the budget to hide items like pension costs maintenance for CPD facilities and cars. These practices allow the city to hide well over $1 billion in costs related to the CPD annually. If you are thinking this reflects really bad on the media in Chicago that it took a budget nerd to spend his free time to uncover these costs when the Chicago media couldn't be bothered over a couple decades to do it you would be correct!