Posted incoronavirus/COVID-19

Incarcerated at Home

hile the novel coronavirus spreads through Cook County Jail more rapidly than nearly any other place in the country—with 317 incarcerated people and 245 correctional officers and other Cook County Sheriff’s staff who have tested positive for COVID-19, including three incarcerated people who have died, as of April 13—nearly 3,000 others in the county are […]

Posted inInterviews

Meet the Candidates: Bill Conway

ill Conway is one of three Democratic challengers to incumbent Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx. He is running on his experience as a naval intelligence officer investigating the Taliban’s funding from narcotics sales, which he says will inform his efforts to remove illegal guns from Chicago’s streets. Conway, who was a prosecutor in the […]

Posted inElections, Politics

Keeping Tabs on Kim Foxx

Promise: Reducing the prosecution of low-level nonviolent felonies Foxx directed her office to stop prosecuting shoplifting cases under $1,000 as felonies and to dismiss many drug cases in favor of alternative prosecution programs. Overall, Foxx declined to prosecute more than 5,000 cases that would have been pursued had the prosecution rates under Anita Alvarez held.  […]

Posted inPolitics

Conway’s Millions

t’s no secret that Bill Conway’s father is the principal donor for his son’s campaign for Cook County State’s Attorney. Conway’s father, William E. Conway, Jr., injected half a million dollars into the race the day after his son declared his candidacy, and has donated $10.5 million in total to the campaign. For the uninitiated, […]

Posted inPolice

Reframing the Narrative

he decision to use lethal force is made in a split second, and is based on the safety of the officer and of the surrounding community, according to Chicago Police Department Superintendent Eddie Johnson. That’s the way he justified the police killing of Harith Augustus, known as “Snoop” by friends and family, in a public […]

Posted inFood Issue 2018

Witnesses to Slaughter

t 11:30pm last Wednesday, a group of fifteen people was standing on a street in West Town, watching for the arrival of a truck. They were members of Chicago Animal Save, an animal anti-cruelty group, and they were holding a monthly vigil to protest the animal cruelty that goes ignored in slaughterhouses. Each member was […]

Posted inHistory

Uncovering Forgotten Histories

ll of my life I sat in history classes when we were young, and we didn’t see ourselves. No one ever handed me a book full of Black women, about Black women, by Black women, ever, in my public education.” Activist and communications professional Essence McDowell was giving a welcome speech to the crowd gathered […]

Posted inRadio

SSW Radio: Strong Relationships, Bail Reform, Uncomfortable Stories, and More

This week on SSW Radio we talked about Black History Month and bail reform, and got insight into how to build a strong foundation to a romantic relationship “To me, Black History month has always been an opportunity to catch up on literature that I was not exposed to through the school system,” Trina Reynolds-Tyler […]

Posted inVisual Arts

Stories of Reform and Resistance

o Not Resist?,” For the People Artists Collective’s 2018 exhibition closed last Friday, February 9 after nearly a month of interdisciplinary generative installations and events across the city. From a training in the basics of cop watching to panels about topics including the abolition ofolf the prison industrial complex and reporting on police violence, the […]