Chicago City Wire

Special interests have twisted the criminal justice reform movement into a lucrative enterprise, according to former Chicago mayoral candidate, Paul Vallas, who wrote an April 24 commentary on the issue.  

Vallas says the movers behind the scheme make up the "Criminal Industrial Complex." The "lawyers, advocates, university researchers, consultants, consent decree monitors that have a growing financial interest in treating criminals like victims and police like criminals."

"It has become a livelihood for many and for some a very lucrative one," he said. "This is a clear and present danger to public safety."

It's all being done under the guise of fighting racism inherent in the criminal justice system. But those driving the Criminal Industrial Complex can’t escape the truth that Black males account for a disproportionate number of inmates, because as a class they commit more crimes.

"Crimes have victims," Vallas wrote, "and victims file reports identifying the suspects. That’s what the police act on."

Chicago City Wire has reported at length on Cook County State's Attorney's Kim Foxx, a big player in the Industrial Complex, and named by Vallas in his commentary. Foxx has effectively transformed the prosecutor's office into a board of pardon; since her first term began in late 2016, she has exonerated over 250, and paved the way for many to obtain Certificates of Innocence, and from there, massive settlement payouts from the city.

In December, Foxx appointed Michelle Mbekeani as head of her Conviction Review Unit.

As reported in Chicago City Wire, Mbekeani was running a side business that connected inmates, claiming innocence, with defense attorneys.

Cook County Judge Michael McHale banned her from his courtroom when he found out about the conflict.

“A Prosecutor takes an oath to be an advocate of the victims of crimes, and families of the victims of crime,” the judge said during a January 8 hearing. “Our criminal courts work as an adversarial system. We have defense attorneys representing the accused on one side, and we're supposed to have a prosecutor representing the People on the other. When those roles become entangled and blurred, as they most certainly were in this case, the public loses trust and confidence in our criminal justice system. It creates an appearance that something unethical is occurring.”

Plaintiffs' lawyers are having a field day.

"A number of Chicago firms now specialize not only in representing perpetrators accused of committing violent crimes," Vallas wrote, "but also scrutinizing and suing police, alleging violations and frequently winning giant, taxpayer-funded settlements that the city leaders seem all too willing to ignore. No coincidence that lawyers specializing in suing the police made up the largest segment of donors to the campaign of Clayton Harris, III, Cook County Board President and Democratic Party Boss Toni Preckwinkle’s handpicked successor to Kim Foxx."

Typically ignored in all this is the impact of increasing violence on the Black community, especially Black women.

"A CBS News Chicago analysis of Chicago Police crime data first found that Black women accounted for 30% of all crime victims in 2022, nearly one in three Black women were targeted by crime in Chicago last year," Vallas noted. "Black women and girls under 18 are hardest hit, with fourteen Black girls attacked and injured for every one White girl."