Expansion of the U.S. criminal justice system over the past three decades has come with a hefty price tag: $3.4 trillion nationwide and $83 billion in Illinois, according to a new report.
Chicagoans who are organizing a ballot initiative to create a community-funded mental health center on the West Side submitted double the required petition signatures to the election board Friday.
Controversy over former Illinois congressman Joe Walsh’s incendiary tweets posted last Thursday after the deadly sniper attack on Dallas police officers has spilled over into the state’s 66th House District race.
The Democrat in the race, Nancy Zettler, is calling on her Republican opponent, Allen Skillicorn, to disavow Walsh’s “hate-filled statements.”
Walsh has faced backlash for a now-deleted tweet that threatened “war” on President Barack Obama and the Black Lives Matter movement.
A former Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) contractor and her husband pleaded guilty Friday in Cook County court to their role in stealing over $177,000 from the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program.
U.S. economic growth suffers when former prisoners and convicted felons are locked out of the labor market, a new study shows.
Employment barriers faced by former offenders resulted in the estimated loss of 1.7 million to 1.9 million workers in 2014, reducing the overall U.S. employment rate by almost 1 percentage point, according to the report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).
That translates into a $78 billion to $87 billion loss in annual gross domestic product (GDP) for the United States.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested 331 undocumented immigrants with criminal convictions in six Midwestern states, including Illinois, during a monthlong enforcement action.
With the state budget stalemate nearing the one-year mark, former Illinois Republican Gov. Jim Edgar made a plea Tuesday for “civility,” “compromise” and “compassion” in Springfield.
Speaking in Chicago, Edgar said the “best public policy comes out of compromise,” explaining that “you can’t get things done if you’re not willing to meet your adversaries halfway.”
“We ought to have checks and balances, but we shouldn’t have shouting matches,” he added at the “Illinois: Vision for the Future” event, hosted by the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform at the Standard Club.
Edgar, who became governor in 1991 and served two terms, said Illinois is currently in the “worst shape” he seen over the 50 years he’s been around state government.
“We have so many people out there hurting because government’s not solving the problem,” he stressed.
Controversy over former Illinois congressman Joe Walsh’s 
U.S. economic growth suffers when former prisoners and convicted felons are locked out of the labor market, a 
With the state budget stalemate nearing the one-year mark, former Illinois Republican Gov. Jim Edgar made a plea Tuesday for “civility,” “compromise” and “compassion” in Springfield.