Center for Wrongful Convictions
UIC Criminal Justice Department
Illinois Criminal Justice Information Agency
The Chicago Justice Project, (CJP), is a not-for-profit organization that conducts both journalistic and social science research into the criminal justice agencies in Chicago and throughout the State of Illinois. The Chicago Justice Project conducts independent research that does not rely on gaining favor with any particular interest groups. With deep consideration of lessons learned in the decade’s long investigation of John Burge's torture ring, the Project's main goal is to bring unbiased information into the public discourse about criminal justice issues. Currently, related crime research is being conducted by academics at both Northwestern University and University of Illinois at Chicago who work in cooperation with the agencies they study for financing and authorization of their research. With a mixture of private and grant funding, the Chicago Justice Project seeks to break the hold these implementing agencies have on the agenda and results of research related to their operations.
The Project will have four specific centers each focused on a particular component of the criminal justice system in the Chicagoland area. Three specific centers will be focused on: the Chicago Police Department, (CPD), Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, Cook County Circuit Court. The forth center will be the FOI center strictly focusing on expanding the transparency of public records.
Unlike media investigations in Chicago, the Policing Center will follow the entirety of the processes within the system and study each phase to verify the integrity of the system. The Policing Center will seek to determine how justice is served throughout the entire process. This means that we will be specifically interested not only in the current circumstances experienced by those interacting with CPD, but we will also be looking at the long-term affects of that interaction. This means we will also be conducting research in communities throughout the city to validate police procedures.
The Court Center will be focused on the operations at the Cook County Criminal Court at 26th St. and California. The criminal court judges yield enormous influence over the patterns and practices of the various other criminal justice agencies operating within the system.
The principles guiding the efforts of the Court Center originated in the problems uncovered in the Burge torture saga. If the judges on the bench at the Cook County Criminal Court had immediately questioned the interrogation tactics that garnered the police their confessions, subsequent acts of torture for many innocent people would have never been permissible.
The Court Center will research the past and present verdicts and evidentiary decisions to track how the judiciary is affecting the patterns and practices of the other institutions in the system.
The principles guiding the efforts of the Court Center originated in the problems uncovered in the Burge torture saga. If the judges on the bench at the Cook County Criminal Court had immediately questioned the interrogation tactics that garnered the police their confessions, subsequent acts of torture for many innocent people would have never been permissible.
The Court Center will research the past and present verdicts and evidentiary decisions to track how the judiciary is affecting the patterns and practices of the other institutions in the system.
The Prosecution Center will be researching to what extent the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office lives up to their role of check and balance on the actions of other law enforcement authorities. Prosecutors have rewards within the internal system they operate in that rewards them for convictions; however, State’s Attorneys are ethically obligated to monitor the credibility of the evidence they present in court.