Loyola University of Chicago

The Center for Criminal Justice Research, Policy and Practice at Loyola University Chicago (the Center) was established in 2015 with the aim of leveraging the resources of a large urban university and the collective strength of diverse disciplines to promote fair, informed, and effective approaches to criminal justice policy and practice in Illinois. This award enables the Center to continue to provide state and local government agencies in Illinois with flexible technical assistance and research and evaluation support aimed at increasing the fairness and effectiveness of the justice system and reducing unnecessary incarceration and racial disparities.

The Center for Criminal Justice Research, Policy and Practice at Loyola University Chicago (the Center) was established in 2015 with the aim of leveraging the resources of a large urban university and the collective strength of diverse disciplines to promote fair, informed, and effective approaches to criminal justice policy and practice in Illinois. This award supports a collaborative effort, led by the Center and in partnership with the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law (Northwestern) and Measures for Justice, to engage local justice stakeholders in the development of an interactive, online public dashboard providing comprehensive information on criminal justice processing in Cook County. The award also enables the Center to continue to provide state and local government agencies in Illinois with ongoing technical assistance and research and evaluation support. Both strands of work will facilitate data-driven policy analysis within and among local criminal justice agencies and help to sustain local criminal justice reform efforts.

Loyola University of Chicago’s Center for Criminal Justice Research, Policy, and Practice (the Center) is an organization dedicated to promoting fair, informed, effective, and ethical approaches to criminal justice policy and practice through collaborative interdisciplinary research and evaluation, professional leadership development, and targeted projects focused on improving the Illinois criminal justice system. The Center in partnership with the Law Office of the Cook County Public Defender (Public Defender) will use the award to improve the Public Defender’s case management system (eDefender) to provide for more robust, and efficient case management. The award will allow Loyola staff to assess gaps in data management and analytics within the current case management system, provide training to Public Defender staff on the importance of data collection and analysis, and support the overall strategic planning and project coordination within the Public Defender’s office.

The Center for Criminal Justice Research, Policy and Practice at Loyola University Chicago (the Center) was established in 2015 with the aim of leveraging the resources of a large urban university and the collective strength of diverse disciplines to promote fair, informed, and effective approaches to criminal justice policy and practice in Illinois. With current support from the Foundation, the Center is working with the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority and selected Illinois counties to establish and support Criminal Justice Coordinating Councils, collaborative county-level planning bodies that use data to determine how they can most effectively and efficiently address their crime problems without unnecessary incarceration. This award enables the Center to design and implement an online statewide public safety assessment and prison utilization dashboard that will support similar data-informed planning and analysis across all 102 Illinois counties.

The Center for Criminal Justice Research, Policy and Practice at Loyola University Chicago (the Center) was established in 2015 with the aim of leveraging the resources of a large urban university and the collective strength of diverse disciplines to promote fair, informed, and effective approaches to criminal justice policy and practice in Illinois. This award enables the Center to provide state and local government agencies in Illinois with ongoing technical assistance and research and evaluation support. This will help position the state to increase the fairness and effectiveness of the justice system and reduce unnecessary incarceration by implementing the reform recommendations of the Illinois State Commission on Criminal Justice and Sentencing Reform (the Commission), which was formed with the goal of finding ways to reduce the state’s prison population by 25 percent in the year 2025.