Many thanks to MK Pritzker and IDOC Director Latoya Hughes for meeting the call to do the right thing and help our community members stay connected.

ILARJ was represented during the FCC's Open Meeting this week. The booing and hissing of the FCC's decision from our section of the audience was widely reported on by media outlets. Nobody should ever be separated from their loved ones.

Children with incarcerated parents are especially vulnerable, and need as much support as possible. ILARJ is creating healthier lives for all members of our Beloved Community, including fighting to prevent incarceration and to ensure people in prison can connect and grow with their children.

ILARJ is proud to have been at this event with Chicago Foundation for Women and Cicero Independiente. We shared our experience as an organization that serves as the network facilitator dedicated to dreaming and remaking justice into systems of care and accountability that serve everyone’s needs.

ILARJ runs the largest, paid, directly-impacted led courtwatching program in the US. Our Courtwatchers are seven trained professionals making observations in Cook County criminal courts on pen and paper. We are proud to serve our community and people. Thank you for making this work possible.

ILARJ honors the Black Panther Party’s legacy and commitment to community health and safety every day. We firmly believe that only through community care and accountability coupled with agency over our social determinants of health can we truly be free.

We remind all members of our community to protect themselves and their families as much as possible. Persons who are arrested at protests are usually persons who have considered these risks and more. It is almost always better to protect yourself so you may continue to speak out freely.

Care and accountability that improves our social determinants of health must be the goal — not punishment. #abolition

National Recovery Month is a time to recognize the challenges that people struggling with their social determinants of health, like substance use disorder, face. Incarceration often comes to the detriment of health — healing and transformation must be the end goal for all persons.

Assata lived a life fighting for Black communities and demanding true justice for all of us. Despite her exile, her presence has transformed many of our community members into leading positive lives fueled by radical imagination.

Assata lived a life fighting for Black communities and demanding true justice for all of us. Despite her exile, her presence has transformed many of our community members into leading positive lives fueled by radical imagination.

Seventy years ago today, the trial for the persons who killed Emmet Till began. During the trial, the all-white, all-male jury were influenced by racially-driven narratives. This case, and a race-focused acquittal, exposed to the nation how the courtroom consistently serves as a tool of oppression.

National Voter Registration Day is a celebration of civic engagement that drives our democracy forward. But, when we leave people behind, this celebration is undercut. Everyone should be able to vote. Experience with the criminal legal system should never impact our basic rights as citizens.

Chicagoans: Know your rights! This community-led training hosted by local organizations is a great opportunity to connect and learn about how to effectively protect yourself when confronted by law enforcement.

When negative social determinants of health are ignored like they were in Attica, people become unhealthy, unhappy, and unrelenting until that changes. (1/4)

George Jackson, Fleeta Drumgo, and John Clutchette taught us the meaning of resistance behind the walls. Black August is a time of remembrance, organizing, and change. ILARJ strives every day to live up to the legacy of the many other organizers we have lost to our oppressive carceral system.

The right to vote is a universal good that is necessary for a free society. As of today, the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified only 106 years ago, securing women's right to vote.

New systems of care and accountability that work for everyone must include teaching the underlying values that make these systems possible.

We are thrilled to announce that we now have 1,000 community partners. These advocates and directly-impacted people support us with their immense talent and wisdom. Our motto, “By Community, For Community, In Community,” would not exist without the partners that make this work possible.

ILARJ is operating the largest directly-impacted led courtwatching program in the US. We have seven fulltime, professional courtwatching team members.

Sixty years after the VRA, 4M people are still barred from our democracy based on a conviction. ILARJ is committed to restoring the vote to all Americans regardless of conviction and embracing new models of participatory democracy that place decisions about our community directly in our own hands.⁩

Words of wisdom from our Executive Director at Civic Power: Democracy Unchained last month ▶️

Action Needed! Help us thank our elected officials for their work to strengthen and protect vital programs in the criminal legal space. It took a large network of people working for months to keep these programs around. (1/3)

Working with our Success Plan participants has been an incredible privilege and experience for the team at ILARJ. Providing individuals within carceral facilities with the tools to understand and reclaim their power is core to the Success Plan. (1/3)

Our hearts go out to the family of Breonna Taylor who was stolen from this world by a system that was never designed for true justice for Black, brown, indigenous, or low wealth people. We hope that her community surrounds her loved ones with love, care, and support ensuring that they are healthy.

Assata is a resonant example of how our criminal justice system relies on intimidation and bias to convict. Today, she remains in political exile. ILARJ will continue to fight the systems that did this to her. #DismantleChangeBuild

While the Supreme Court recently made it almost impossible for people to stop blatantly illegal actions, ILARJ will continue to push against any and all forms of entry into carceral settings — including mass exile facilities and death camps in El Salvador.

In 2015, formerly incarcerated leader Glenn E. Martin launched a campaign to reduce mass incarceration by 50% before 2030. Given we are on track to hit this target, it’s more important than ever to deploy radical imagination to find solutions to bring this number as close to 100% as possible.

Independence Day is a time to celebrate freedom and unalienable rights. ILARJ is dedicated to standing alongside those who are forced to work for slave wages — and everyone else for whom the promise of America has yet to be realized.

We will continue to fight tirelessly for no entry as the prevalent form of reentry and for our framework for reentry focused on improving social determinants of health from the earliest point possible. Because none of us are truly free until everyone is.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 could not have come without the millions of people across the country fighting for Congress to enact it and for President Kennedy to sign it. As we celebrate the enshrined rights we have and mourn those lost, we must also remember that it takes work to preserve them.

We will be at Civic Power 2025: Democracy Unchained next week with @sentencingproject.bsky.social. We hope to see you at one of the panels our team members are participating in. Excited to share more about this during the coming weeks!

The riot at Stonewall was a natural response to overpolicing and targeting of vulnerable communities. Today, ILARJ is working across the system to prevent, address, and undo harm rooting our communities to systems of mass incarceration.

Minute-for-minute, Illinois has begun charging families 109 times more than the typical commercial plan to provide the comfort of music to their loved ones, including fees to send the needed money.

Juneteenth is a day of freedom, but the fight for our freedom continues. Today, hundreds of thousands of people in carceral settings are forced into menial labor for pennies per hour. We are still on the path to emancipation; we must use radical imagination to free ourselves.

It has been 54 years since the War on Drugs began. Since then, we have witnessed all manner of abuse, pain, and suffering inflicted on our communities. (🧵1/3)

Right now, over 600,000 fathers are incarcerated. For the 1.3 million children separated from their parent today, they will suffer from it for the rest of their lives. Children in communities of color that have been victimized by mass incarceration are even more vulnerable. #FathersDay #publichealth

Controlling people through technology has become a staple of modern law enforcement. The infrastructure used against vulnerable returning residents is always used against the public. (1/3)

After 3 years of wrongful imprisonment — where he endured beatings and solitary confinement — Kalief Browder struggled with his mental health. Two years after release, Kalief took his own life. We stand in support of Kalief and all others who have been tortured by America's criminal legal system.

For several months we have conducted research regarding the housing problem for people with arrest and conviction records, especially those subjected to banishment laws. The policy recommendations coming out of that research are as follows: youtu.be/0QJsIHYT_6E

ILARJ will always celebrate Pride Month and strive to center the powerful voices of LGBTQ+ members in the community and across the criminal legal system. #pridemonth #pridemonth2025

Healthy communities are safe communities. When families struggle to provide for their children or themselves, we all pay the costs — often through the toll of crime and incarceration. Paying a living wage is a public safety issue. Everyone in our society deserves equal access to economic stability.

Our Executive Director testified at the Illinois House recently, in which she advocated on behalf of ILARJ regarding the importance of Credit for Change. Massive thanks to all of our partners, and we will continue pushing for a justice system that fully recognizes that people can grow and change.

We at @ilarj.org remain committed to tackling all manner of social determinants of health that impact a person’s involvement with our criminal legal system. Mental health is a major predictor of involvement with the system. Criminalizing instead of helping doesn’t work. #MentalHealthMonth

No more prisons, no more deportations, no more genocide. Join us tomorrow from 2 to 5pm for the 12th Annual Free Our Moms Vigil. Sign-up at bit.ly/43wusb1

We must support the need for organization, education, and negotiation to ensure our incarcerated workers have adequate representation in their work environment. #ImplementILWorkersRightsAmendment

#SecondChanceMonth is a recognition and public acknowledgement of reentry efforts, but many fail to mention how many people never had a first chance. The best reentry is no entry, and fixing the root harms tied to our social determinants of health will achieve this. #ReimagineAndRemakeJustice

We're so proud to have Benny Lopez & other extremely talented people willing to use their gifts to speak truth to power, encourage the use of co-governance as a tool for harm reduction & build community-designed and delivered systems of care and accountability. #PassSB65 #PassHB1428 #Reimagine

EVENT: Participate in a meaningful Letter-Writing Campaign aimed at building connections with incarcerated individuals and informing them of their rights to be counted in their home communities. Date: April 26, 2025 Time: 12:30 PM – 2:00 PM Location: Rainbow PU$H, 930 E. 50th St., Chicago, IL 60615

After recent events, we have decided to issue the following statement in solidarity with the Vera Institute for Justice (1/7)