Bond reform activists Monday spoke out towards the Chicago Police Department’s new on-line database displaying bond quantities for individuals charged with gun crimes — pitting themselves towards Mayor Lori Lightfoot and police Supt. Eddie Johnson, who assist the Gun Offender Dashboard.
“The Gun Offender Dashboard claims to list bond court outcomes for people charged with violent gun crimes. But that’s exactly what it doesn’t do,” mentioned Sarah Staudt, a coverage analyst on the Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice. “Ninety-nine percent of the people listed on that website are charged with offenses where they are not accused of hurting anyone.”
Instead, she mentioned, many individuals are on the database for a “mere possession of a weapon.”
Last week, Cook County Public Defender Amy Campanelli mentioned the database is inaccurate and doesn’t differentiate between individuals who have been arrested for gun possession from those that’ve been charged with crimes that concerned firing weapons.
Sharlyn Grace, the chief director of the Chicago Community Bond Fund, mentioned the database “contains inaccurate, prejudicial information” and referred to as for its removing, aligning the Chicago Community Bond Fund with Campanelli’s stance on the problem.
“We know jailing people pretrial actually increases their risk of re-arrest,” she mentioned. “It increases recidivism because putting people in jail destroys any positive things that are going on in their lives. It destroys jobs, stable housing, positive social connections. By jailing so many people in the past, we have created more crime in Chicago.”
“We are not going to allow bond reform to be used as a scapegoat to a false narrative that pretends to explain Chicago violence when we know that the root causes are much more complicated,” Grace mentioned.
CPD spokesman Anthony Guglielmi defended the database.
“All data in the Gun Offender Dashboard is public, and is consistent with the information that most counties in Illinois already readily supply to their communities,” Guglielmi wrote in a press release. “Chicago has a right to a transparent criminal justice system, and we aim to help create it.”
Johnson final week responded to Campanelli’s criticism.
“I know personally and professionally the fear, suffering, and pain that gun offenders who carry firearms with impunity can bring to communities across Chicago,” Johnson wrote within the letter.
Stephanie Kollmann, the coverage director of the Children and Family Justice Center at Northwestern University Law School, referred to as for the town to create a “comprehensive violence prevention plan” that features “specific and holistic approaches to gun violence reduction.”
Minister Ciera Walker referred to as for neighborhood outreach and providers that handle trauma in neighborhoods affected by violence as a technique to cease the violence.
“You cannot incarcerate your way out of this issue,” Walker mentioned. “You actually have to invest the solutions that work. … Incarcerating our young black men and women only perpetuates the issues. It does not save lives.”