Category: Midwest

Artist drawing of Chicago police officer with mirrored sunglasses holding a finger to his lips

In Illinois, a model police reform law falls short; Missouri backpedals

After passing the SAFE-T  Act in 2021, Illinois was hailed as a model for police reform. However, despite the abolition of cash bail and sweeping police reforms, there remain barriers to accountability. The next step, critics say, is enforcing the existing policy changes among Illinois’ enforcement agencies, strengthening the penalties for failing to fulfill public…

Missouri is home of police decertification. It also keeps data showing wandering officers a secret.

On July 4, 2023, Samuel Davis, a 26-year-old officer for the Northwoods Police Department in North St. Louis County, took Charles Garmon into custody at a Walgreens. After handcuffing Garmon, Davis drove him to a remote intersection outside of a Pepsi bottling plant in Kinloch, a now-largely industrial city of under 300 residents, some four…

News Analysis: The arc of the moral universe veers away from justice 10 years after Ferguson

Ten years after the Ferguson uprising, five years after “The 1619 Project” and four years after the murder of George Floyd, the racial reckoning that seemed at hand has largely dissipated amidst  a political and legal backlash — laws outlawing “DEI,” attacks on a “DEI vice president” and bans on books in public libraries and…