West Cook News

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is hoping the creation of the Interagency Reentry Council will help steer formerly incarcerated people in the right direction.

Lightfoot recently flexed her executive order muscle to get the measure over the finish line.  

“I know all too well the incredible challenges people face when trying to rebuild their lives after exiting the criminal justice system,” Lightfoot posted on Twitter. “For many in our community, including my own brother, we have failed to create opportunities for them to have meaningful and productive lives post-incarceration. This has hurt communities and families throughout our city, particularly in Black and brown neighborhoods.”

Lightfoot detailed what the new order entails.

“In the Chicago Recovery Plan, we invested $10 million in a three-year reentry workforce program for training and wrap-around supports for residents to attain employment and stabilization, and $3 million in community legal services like expungement and record sealing,” she added in a press release. “There is still much work to be done, but these are steps in the right direction to build a truly Second Chance City.”  

In the spring of 2021, Lightfoot also convened a multi-sector Returning Residents Working Group to shape city policy in that area. With the group made up of community leaders, advocates and residents with lived experience, the goal is to create a program that better supports returning residents.

Lightfoot leans on personal experience.

“As the sister of a man who spent more than a decade of his life incarcerated, I have seen firsthand the incredible barriers and challenges faced by people seeking to rebuild and reshape their lives as they exit the criminal justice system,” she said. “When I became mayor, I knew that I owed it to my brother, and the millions of people facing those same challenges that he faced, to ensure that Chicago became a welcoming city for people who have paid their debt to society and are seeking to build productive and meaningful lives post-incarceration.”

Going back to 2005, a study on recidivism followed 401,288 state prisoners who were released in 2005, finding that approximately 68% of them were arrested again within three years and 83% of them had been arrested again within nine years, at which time the study had concluded.

This year, the violence in Chicago has only escalated, with the city’s shooting and homicide numbers over the first eight months of the year outpacing last year’s totals, WTTW reported.

In the month of August alone, Chicago recorded 78 homicides, making it the second deadliest August in more than two decades, according to ABC7. The most recent totals included the death of police Officer Ella French, who was fatally shot during a traffic stop not long before her 30th birthday. With COVID-19 also wreaking havoc, 2020 ended with Cook County recording a record 16,049 deaths for the year.

In 2020, the number of shootings and murders in Chicago jumped by more than 50%, with murders up to 769 from 495 in 2019.