Chicago City Wire

Illinois Policy Institute President Ted Dabrowski isn't sure what could come next for the downtown Chicago business district.

“When you start combining this crime issue that we're talking about and start adding that  corporations are going to delay their office reopenings it starts to all add up again," Dabrowski told Chicago’s Morning Answer.

Dabrowski said Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s office is mishandling the increase in crime.

“I think it’s a real issue,” he said. “I hear people say we don’t go down there anymore. People don’t walk around there anymore. They take an Uber everywhere they’re going. It’s really confusing when you hear (authorities) say how much better they’re doing managing felonies when this new report comes out and says just the opposite.”

 With felony crime on the rise, a new report says Foxx and her staff have dismissed upwards of 25,000 felony cases - including many involving charges of murder and other serious crimes – over her first three years in office. While her decision to drop felony charges against Empire actor Jussie Smollett – who was accused of fraudulently reporting a racist, homophobic attack in 2019 – has attracted the most attention, reports are since 2016 she has dismissed all charges against nearly 30 percent of all felony suspects.

By comparison, Foxx, who was swept into office largely on a platform of criminal justice reform, had dropped charges against felony defendants at a clip that’s more than 10 percent greater than predecessor Anita Alvarez.

In a recent Tribune interview, Foxx defended her track record by claiming her office has made the decision to focus on violent crime.

“I will say that this administration has been clear that our focus would be on violent crime and making sure that our resources and attention would go to addressing violent crime,” she said, though all the data doesn’t completely back up claim.

The Tribune's analysis further details a pattern of Foxx’s office dismissing cases against suspects charged in murders, shootings, sex crimes and serious drug offenses at a sharply higher rate than Alvarez did.

Foxx admits she encourages staffers in her office to openly discuss dismissing felony charges in cases that have legal problems, attributing that to the city’s history of wrongful convictions and police misconduct.

“Recognizing the history that we've had around wrongful convictions, recognizing our ethical obligations as prosecutors ... requires us to reinforce that people can, if they believe a case is flawed, bring it to our attention, and we will dismiss it if it's appropriate," she said.