In Chicago, Rethinking the Link Between Crime and Incarceration | The Appeal

By: Kira Lerner

A new report shows that a progressive approach, like the one advanced by Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, can help decrease jail populations—and crime.

Incarceration has long been touted as a necessary deterrent to crime. But across the country, just the opposite is proving true: Progressive prosecutors are successfully reducing incarceration without any corresponding increase in crime rates.

In Chicago, crime is dropping. According to a new report, the number of people sentenced to prison or jail fell by almost 20 percent last year while violent crime also dropped by roughly 8 percent under State’s Attorney Kim Foxx.

Foxx, the top prosecutor in Cook County, Illinois, was elected on a decarceration platform in November 2016. As one of a growing number of progressive prosecutors across the country, she has reformed Chicago’s legal system by overseeing an office in which prosecutors are less likely to seek jail or prison time and more likely to use alternatives to incarceration to ensure public safety. 

[Featured Image: Cook County State’s Attorney Kim FoxxPhoto by Nuccio DiNuzzo/Getty Images]

Click to read the full article at The Appeal