Chicago Justice Podcast

How politics, media, and institutions distort crime narratives across America Fear has become the dominant framework for how Americans understand crime—and it is often deliberately manufactured. In this episode of the Chicago Justice Podcast, host Tracy Siska, Executive Director of the Chicago Justice Project, introduces a new national focus for the show. We examine how crime and violence are exploited by political leaders, media outlets, justice system officials, and police unions to shape public perception, deflect accountability, and justify extreme policy responses. Despite well‑documented declines in violent crime across much of the country from 2022 through 2025, fear‑based narratives persist. Isolated incidents are amplified, progress is denied, and national trends are ignored when they complicate political agendas. This episode challenges the myths surrounding crime “waves,” questions who benefits from public fear, and explores how distorted narratives can lead to real‑world consequences—including militarized responses and the erosion of democratic accountability. This episode marks the beginning of our expanded national lens on public safety, justice, and truth.

We open season four with a discussion of Karina’s bill, which hopes to formalize a process for the courts & police departments throughout Illinois to seize guns from individuals who have an order of protection entered against them. Our guest today is Danielle Parisi Ruffatto, Managing Director of the Family Law and Protective Orders Division at Ascend Justice. We discuss the horrific murder of Karina Gonzales & her daughter Daniela Alvarez at the hands of Karina’s husband, Jose Alvarez, who had been ordered to stay away from the home. The protector order Karina received from the court revokes a person’s FOID card, but the court and police do not have a formal process for ensuring that officers remove the gun when they are serving the order of protection. Karina’s bill will formalize this process while empowering judges to approve search warrants when entering the protective order to allow officers to search homes & retrieve weapons if necessary. Support CJP via Patreon Get involved in our work – Join CJP Nation!

On today’s episode, we feature an interview with Alexandra Block from the ACLU of Illinois about their lawsuit against the Chicago Police Department’s highly questionable traffic stop practices. The ACLU alleges that the CPD pulls people over exclusively to search them and their care for drugs and guns. According to their statistics, the CPD’s rate of finding guns, drugs, or cause to arrest the person they have pulled over is about 1%. In 2020 the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office documented a significant switch in tactics by the CPD from pursuing gun offenders, those who have committed a violent crime with a weapon, to seek those who possess an unregistered gun. In the ACLU lawsuit, they allege that in 2016 the CPD made another switch in tactics from doing large numbers of stops of pedestrians in communities of color to making car stops in never before seen numbers in those same communities. The ACLU calls this just another version of stop and frisk. When combining these two critical data points, it is evident that CPD officials made a concerted effort to change how they fight gun violence and where and how they search for unregistered guns. We also discussed with Alexandra that within a lawsuit filed by a former officer, internal emails were exposed showing high-ranking officers within the department pushing middle management to increase their traffic stop numbers. The emails reveal the pushing of unconstitutional CPD quotas designed to get officers on the street to increase significantly the number of pretextual stops they make. As the ACLU data shows, about 1 in 100 stops results in gun, drugs, or cause for arrest being found. Oddly enough, they also don’t result in a ticket being written. Significant proof that traffic safety is not a purpose for the stops.

Despite promises to the contrary by the Chicago Police Department and the agencies that make up the police accountability system in Chicago, lying while undertaking your official duties as an officer isn’t taken all that seriously. The CPD’s rule 14 bars any officer from knowingly submitting a written or oral false report. In other words, they are not supposed to lie. A recent report issued by the Chicago Inspector General’s office details how the CPD and the police accountability system are utterly inconsistent in how they respond to officers lying in their official duties. While all the agencies talk publicly about the importance of integrity and truthfulness, they are not taking violations of rule 14 anywhere as seriously as they want people to believe they are. The integrity of the CPD and the police accountability system is vital to building trust between communities and the CPD. Despite this reality, the Office of Inspector General’s Public Safety section continues to churn out report after report demonstrating how little attention the agencies pay toward accountability. Today’s episode discusses these issues with Chicago’s Inspector General Deborah Witzburg.

On the show today we sit down with Raina Lipsitz to discuss America’s problem with justice reform and how cities like Chicago are caught in endless cycle of failure when it comes to passing meaningful justice reform. A meaningful conversation to engage in now as Mayor Lightfoot’s time in office has ended with a pretty dismal record on justice reform including endlessly scapegoating judges as being to lenient despite all the scientific evidence to the contrary. Lipsitz in an article published last summer in The Crime Report discusses a couple national level examples including Philadelphia’s progressive District Attorney Larry Krasner & New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Adams has proven to be pretty retrograde on his policing and justice policies according to Lipsitz including moving to reopen Riker’s jail despite the unprecedented evidence of the harm the jail is causing inmates. Krasner for his part has stayed pretty true to his politics and even won reelection despite the alt right’s complaints about his policies. This discussion is very timely as Brandon Johnson starts his first days in office his spokesman already started to flip flop on whether Johnson would be reopening the mental health clinics that he promised so thoroughly during his campaign. Johnson is not alone just about every mayor for at least the last three decades has in one form or another campaigned on doing something about the abuse of the Chicago police and then never really do anything about that abuse once they get in to office. Lipsitz in her piece so perfectly explains how Chicago liberals want to think they are for true justice reform but when in power they always bail on those plans. They don’t want what happened to Kim Foxx to happen to them. Raina Lipsitz is the author of The Rise of a New Left: How Young Radicals Are Shaping the Future of American Politics, published from Verso. Her work has appeared in Al Jazeera America, The Appeal, The Atlantic, The Nation, and The New Republic, among other publications. We are talking to her today about a piece she wrote last July in The Crime Report: Breaking the ‘Toxic Cycle’ of Fear Over Justice Reform.

Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx has announced that after two terms in office she will not be running for re-election in the fall of 2024. On today’s show we will provide our quick response to Foxx deciding to end her political career and provide some insight on what brought us to this point. It is very hard for progressive politicians to bring in the changes they campaign on because of the vitriolic response from centrists and conservatives. In the post 2016 presidential election that gave air to the alt right this has become much harder. The bar is raised to such a degree that the slightest mistake or transgression is seized upon and can be career ending. In the case of Foxx her mistake was so big that it probably would have caused even the most conservative prosecutor their next election. Of course I am talking about the deal that Foxx executed in one of Chicago’s stupidest scandals ever, the Jussie Smollett case. The fact that the case was charged in the manner it was originally shows you just how dysfunctional it has been but that does not absolve Foxx of her responsibility of totally bumbling probably the highest profile (yet stupidest) case her office would handle in her two terms. The reality is that the reaction to the progressive reforms that Foxx put forward like bail reform and her changes to not charging people for retail theft unless in access of a $1,000 was stolen were completely baseless. The criticisms were put forward from the alt right in Chicago, a mayor who has a PhD in pointing finger at other, and a police superintendent with a history of lying during an internal misconduct investigation. Not a credible bunch at all.

On today’s episode I am going to give you my very initial thoughts on the Brandon Johnson victory in the Chicago mayoral runoff election as it pertains to police reform issues. The majority of the mayoral field ran primarily on the issue of crime and violence being out of control in Chicago. If you are thinking that black “progressive” alderpeople who jumped in the race wouldn’t do that you would be wrong. Instead it was a chorus signing the tride but true 1980s ear rhetoric about the need for more police officers and that each individual candidate was the only person who could bring crime under control. While these tactics seemed to be affective against Mayor Lightfoot those same types of critiques against a far more progressive in rhetoric candidate Johnson didn’t seem to work as well. There is little doubt in my mind that Paul Vallas tried the Bob Fioretti plan where he was going to try to be a candidate for every possible constituency in the city, and many that couldn’t even vote in this election. Over the last several years he has certainly grown publicly closer to the MAGA and alt right both in Chicago and throughout Illinois. As Illinois grows more and more democratic this strategy has always seemed odd to me. Attempting a mayoral run in Chicago after doing this is puzzling for sure. Unfortunately for Vallas he continued to do this during the campaign. There is no doubt given the margin of about 17,000 votes his move right probably played a more important role then we will ever understand in his loss. As for what we should expect from Johnson I am think reformers should not expect major changes in the first budget. There just isn’t enough time. When Johnson starts to make changes I am hoping he roles our a crisis response system that removes officers from responding to 911 calls that don’t require them to be there. This would allow the city to staff a response with mental health professionals, medical personnel, and social workers. This among all the reforms Johnson could bring in would probably do the most to help repair the relationship between the community and the police department.

The coverage of the runoff in the race for mayor and the intense focus on crime and criminal justice matters exposes bias in the Chicago Tribune and the reporters. In the article we discuss today there are massive assumptions embedded in the article that are presented as facts by the two authors. Also embedded in the article if you look closely are topics for which Chicago journalists continue to fail the public by not making the candidates for mayor provide specific answers to pointed follow up questions regarding their policies. The rhetoric coming from the Vallas campaign about proactive policing and removing restrictions on police foot and car pursuits so they can get the criminals sounds good in a commercial but journalists should be forcing both candidates to provide specifics about their policies so experts can weigh in on what science tells us about the potential impact of their policies. All people of color should be scared of a Chicago Police Department unchained by the accountability system and free to do whatever is needed to get the job done. If anyone remembers what the Special Operations Section (SOS) street unit was doing under Phil Cline imagine that but department wide. It will be like dropping a nuclear bomb in police community relations building efforts. For his part Brandon Johnson is providing more specifics about his plans than Vallas. He is for building up a citywide crisis response to 911 calls involving mental health and drugs that do not require an armed officer to respond. He has also said he will not commit to hiring additional officers to the department and instead wants to invest that money into programs that will have longer-term success. He has backed off of to some degree his support for defunding the police. I think with Johnson he has strategically decided to talk in more nuance about the programs he would fund by diverting police budgets rather that the general defund concepts.

Mayor Lightfoot just lost re-election and now stands as the first mayor in forty years to fail to lose re-election after their first term in office. Her is our quick reaction to her loss. There is little doubt that the reaction to to Mayor Lightfoot from the beginning was based partially on her race, gender, and sexuality. There is also little doubt that her style of governance and lack of relationship building skills contributed significantly to her downfall. Mayor Lightfoot has a propensity to always think she is the smartest person in the room and make important decisions without taking time to think things through. Her reaction to the protests to George Floyd’s murder and their demands to defund the police are a prime example. Instead of coming up with a strategy to show compassion and engage the protestors she immediately came out and denounced the protests and dismissed their calls. She should have engaged protestors in discussions around what it would look like to create a new public safety agency and build alternative responses to 911 calls that don’t involve the police. This was the easy and smart move. But the Mayor chose to be dismissive in her patented style which only through gas on the flames instead of working to douse them. For some reason the Mayor picked David Brown to be her Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department despite his track record of lying during internal investigations and police policies from the strong age. This hurt her politically as Brown’s tenure basically turned in to one big disgrace as he is as good at building and maintaining relationships as she is. We are now left with a run off election for the mayor’s office between Paul Vallas, who is alt right when it comes to policing, and Brandon Johnson, who sounds progressive on police reform but has little real record to show voters. These candidates are starkly different on police reform like Chicago probably never really has had before. Time will tell who wins.

The police accountability system in Chicago just provided all of us more examples of just how broken the system really is. It is a system I have spent over 25 years trying to reform but unfortunately the system cannot seem to provide the Chicago Police Department the oversight and accountability that has been so desperately needed in Chicago. On today’s show we take a look at a recent example where the failures of this system has provided an avenue for an officer to continue his career as a police officer despite demonstrating horrendously bad judgment while off duty drunk and armed. Instead of firing the officer they instead sought a mediated settlement of a 180 suspension. This allowed the officer to get a job with a suburban department after serving his suspension instead of being removed from the profession completely. For some reason being drunk off duty, armed, getting in to a fight, and losing control of your gun in the fight is not something the system deems serious enough to remove the officer from the profession. In last week’s show we talked with Chicago Inspector General Deborah Witzburg and the failure of the system to fire two officers affiliated with the white supremacist organizations of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. Unfortunately this pattern of incompetence and lack of aggressiveness is not new to this version of the system but instead endemic of how it has operated since it was created. Also on today’s show we discuss an oddly framed article about CPD Superintendent David Brown aging out at the department this spring which was instead framed with intrigue as to whether or not he will stay on despite the fact that all the mayoral contenders say they will not keep him on. We also discuss the need for listeners to vote for their district council seats in the upcoming elections as the alt right in Chicago is organizing and running the exact people you would expect them to run. Get Involved: www.cjpnation.org Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=13274454

On today’s show we sit down with 33rd Ward Alderwoman Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez to discuss her efforts to get Chicago to implement true crisis response that doesn’t involve the Chicago Police Department. While focusing mainly on her ordinance we also get a little politics in given it is the season as Chicago’s elections will be held in just a few weeks. In response to protests stemming from the murder of George Floyd cities around the country started to test out and implement a form of crisis response to 911 calls that doesn’t involve sending uniformed officers with guns to the scene. The idea is that the mere presence of the badge and gun escalates the situation. It also takes in to account that officers are not trained nor equipped to properly deal with people in mental health crisis or who are under the influence of drugs or alcohol but haven’t yet become violence. Chicago under Mayor Lightfoot did indeed create a few pilot programs in a couple of districts Mayor Lightfoot demanded that those pilots include an officer among the responders. This is something our guest and the three decades of evidence in Eugene, OR shows that is not the way to do it. Crisis response is not something new to the US. The CAHOOTS crisis response program has been active since 1988. CAHOOTS has demonstrated that crisis response can be successful over three decades it is just that Mayor Lightfoot either decided to ignore the evidence or just thought she knew better than everyone else. This is a common issue with people who always think they are the smartest person in the room. Alderwoman Rodriguez Sanchez has introduced an ordinance called Treatment not Trauma that focuses on crisis response. We will be talking in-depth about the ordinance and Mayor Lightfoot’s response.

On today’s episode we feature a discussion about the real cost of the Chicago Police Department and how the City of Chicago uses corrupt budget practices to hide some of the cost from taxpayers and the media. These practices are not new to the city but Mayor Lightfoot’s administration has done nothing to correct them. Thus, like other corrupt mayors before her she hides the true cost from taxpayers. Trying to figure out exactly how much the city spends on the Chicago Police Department is almost impossible unless you have significant experience deciphering budgets for a living. Thankfully, Jonathan Silverstein took the time to comb through the city’s budget and parse out the hidden costs associated with operating the CPD. Jonathan is a Management Analyst with the City of Evanston, IL during the day. Jonathan has experience with Chicago budgets as he worked both in an alderperson’s office and at the City Council Office of Financial Analysis. The politics around how much policing in the city costs taxpayers has always be fraught. On one side you have the Fraternal Order of Police always demanding the city spend more and more on police while leftists in Chicago question the spending and would rather put those costs towards addressing root causes. In his research Jonathan details how the city uses a dumping ground within the budget to hide items like pension costs maintenance for CPD facilities and cars. These practices allow the city to hide well over $1 billion in costs related to the CPD annually. If you are thinking this reflects really bad on the media in Chicago that it took a budget nerd to spend his free time to uncover these costs when the Chicago media couldn’t be bothered over a couple decades to do it you would be correct!

On today’s pod we sit down with former Inspector General for the City of Chicago, Joe Ferguson. We discuss a wide range of topics from the city’s failure to release investigative reports generated by his former office to city council corruption to why there is not a single Inspector General Office with oversight over all of the city departments. Ferguson left office last year after a 12 year run. His tenure covered the last 2 years of the Daley administration, Rahm Emanuel’s two terms, and about 60% of Mayor Lightfoot’s first term. Ferguson aggressiveness in his pursuit to expose graft that is endemic to Chicago has always presented political problems for the politicians within the City Council and the Mayor’s Office. About 6 years ago the City Council passed legislation creating the Deputy Public Safety Inspector General within his office that empowered the office to reach in to the Chicago Police Department & the police accountability system in Chicago and audit their activities. This has resulted in Ferguson’s office publishing several groundbreaking reports about the failures of the CPD and the police accountability system. Many of which have been discussed on previous episodes featuring interview with Deputy Public Safety Inspector General Deborah Witzburg. Ferguson has been involved in Chicago politics and corruption long enough that his insight in to Mayor Lightfoot and Superintendent David Browns actions are certainly informed. The Mayor could not hid her contempt for Ferguson or the office during her short time in office. It was so bad that when she announced his permanent replacement she just couldn’t help herself and had to blurt out about the need for Witzburg and the office to stay in their lane. A clear threat to not mess with the big boss. You can support our work as well as access podcast extra out our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=13274454