Chicago Appleseed
@chicagoappleseed.org
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Addressing systemic issues in Chicago courts through research and advocacy 🍏
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Maya Dukmasova
@mdoukmas.bsky.social
· Aug 29
NEW Court-Watching Report - Evicted in the Dark: Findings & Observations from Cook County Eviction Courts
New court-watching report shows Cook County eviction courts are far from accessible for tenants, who are overwhelming Black and Latine people without legal representation.
www.chicagoappleseed.org
Chicago Appleseed
@chicagoappleseed.org
· Aug 29
NEW Court-Watching Report - Evicted in the Dark: Findings & Observations from Cook County Eviction Courts
New court-watching report shows Cook County eviction courts are far from accessible for tenants, who are overwhelming Black and Latine people without legal representation.
www.chicagoappleseed.org
Chicago Appleseed
@chicagoappleseed.org
· Aug 29
Chicago Appleseed
@chicagoappleseed.org
· Aug 29
Chicago Appleseed
@chicagoappleseed.org
· Aug 29
Reposted by Chicago Appleseed
![People are now "able to grocery shop and go to job interviews and [do] everything that they previously were not able to do," according to one advocate, improving their capacity to maintain stability as their criminal case progresses. Unfortunately, our findings show that, even after the implementation of the essential movement reform, obtaining and maintaining additional movement beyond the guaranteed two days per week has continued to be incredibly difficult for people in the Sheriff's program. The Sheriff requires participants to reapply for movement every 30 days through an onerous application process. A defense attorney we interviewed discussed how their client had submitted the required paperwork every 30 days and been approved for work-related movement every time until, in November 2023, the Sheriff's Office suddenly denied his request:
I have a client who just lost his job... He'd been there for two years... [and] had been getting movement for work...until right before Thanksgiving. They didn't approve his most recent submission of his work schedule...and now [his employer] fired him even though he had been, like, a star employee, but because he had too long where he wasn't approved to go to work, [his employer] fired him.
The Sheriff's Office provided no clear explanation as to why they revoked this participant's movement after months of consistent approval. The same attorney described this as an ongoing pattern: "It's pretty difficult for my clients to independently get approval for movement, even when it's enumerated in the law, like work." For participants of the Sheriff's program, for whom movement was inaccessible prior to the reform, the Pretrial Fairness Act has failed to guarantee their capacity to attend work regularly, especially for those with long commutes:
A lot of the people I work with, they have... factory jobs and stuff and so they start really, really early. Sometimes folks are getting on the bus at like five in the morning to get to the…](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:rbahpxqoqnem2dmskuhrym43/bafkreif5tfvlkw24oqto5mc2fgwsulcvdfr5ejxsrpwfriur5egzpgixvi@jpeg)
![Technical issues with devices and administrative errors made by the Cook County Sheriff's Office have apparently hindered the success of the essential movement reform. We spoke with someone who was falsely accused of violating their EM conditions while at their approved place of employment:
[Police] came to my job one day thinking...I wasn't supposed to be outside or whatever. And I'm like: "Bro, like, y'all can't come in, I work at a...school... [and] all these little kids, they see...y'all badges [and] guns out looking for me.". They was loud...and my boss is telling them like: "Why's y'all out here like, we know exactly what he's going through...he's working," like, "why are y'all looking for him?" and [the officers] were trying to make somebody take me to jail.
Despite taking every necessary precaution to secure movement for work, this person was harassed, threatened, and humiliated in front of colleagues and students. We were told by another prior participant that they got fired because CCSO officers were harassing them at work due to signal issues:
I lost [my] job because of EM, because they kept coming into [my job] saying, when I was at work: "We don't have a signal, we don't have service." I work in a warehouse-I don't think you're gonna have a signal in a big warehouse-so they would have me stop working and go outside. I had to do that every day and go outside in a job where...you can't get off the line, so I lost the job because of EM.
Another interviewee who lost their job after repeated difficulties with the Sheriff's Office expressed that it would be "way easier to make money moving weight [selling or delivering controlled substances] than it would be to get a job and go to work" because of movement restrictions. The very purpose of EM, in theory, is to enable people to contribute to their communities while being monitored by the state, if they are not able to maintain employment while on EM, then the program is not successful.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:rbahpxqoqnem2dmskuhrym43/bafkreibhigojfrzarfdmq5nkz54ceeqhbrzljrrpjt73nlkeay7tyoc56i@jpeg)
