Today through Saturday, the Pilsen-based ceramic studio Gnarware Workshop hosts the Empty Bowls Fundraiser and Soup Service. Visit their webstore to purchase an empty ceramic bowl made by a local artist. Proceeds go directly to local food pantries and Love Fridges to provide food in time for Thanksgiving. Prices start at $7, and all bowls […]
Tag: incarceration
Posted inNews & Politics
Guaranteed income offers stability to formerly incarcerated people
Many struggle to find employment because of the stigma of a criminal record. To help, one organization is offering cash.
Posted inFilm
WorldScene Film Festival proves that incarcerated people are More Than a Uniform
This week, the WorldScene Film Residency culminates in a film festival curated to illuminate the struggles of young men entangled in the justice system, giving the detainees a voice to share their experiences with their community.
Posted inOn Prisons
Drinking water in Illinois prisons is a crapshoot
The tap water at Stateville has been dangerous for decades.
Posted inNews & Politics
False alarms
Ankle-monitor alerts garner phone calls and visits from sheriffs officers—but more than 80 percent are bogus, according to a University of Chicago analysis.
Posted inOn Prisons
A very dark place
Maintaining mental health in prison was already challenging before COVID-19 hit.
Posted inArts & Culture
‘We can imagine our way into something else’
When Anthony Holmes goes to the doctor today, he’s asked: How many heart attacks have you had? That’s because, Holmes says, the torture he faced in 1973 at the hands of then-Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge included shocking him with an electric shock box and suffocating him with plastic bags. Burge and the mostly white […]
Posted inNews & Politics
In the dark
COVID-19 hospitalizations at Illinois corrections department leave incarcerated peoples’ loved ones with questions
Posted inNews & Politics
No complaints
Roosevelt Myles spent 28 years in prison, only to be released into a world in lockdown. He’s happier than he’s been in a long time.
Posted inNews & Politics
‘Ain’t I matter? Don’t I count?’
Raptivist Bella Bahhs elucidates the importance—and the failures of—the census for formerly incarcerated women.
Posted inNews & Politics
Dozens of reports from inside Cook County Jail paint a grim picture as COVID-19 cases soar
Prisoners say the jail, which has seen more than 800 confirmed cases, is a “death trap.”
Posted inNews & Politics
‘I’m not overreacting’
A man who has waited 20 years for a court-ordered hearing is trying to secure release from prison before the virus hits.
Posted inNews & Politics
‘The big house and the picket fence’
Tonya Crowder still dreams that she and her fiance, Roosevelt Myles—who’s been in prison for decades fighting what he says is a wrongful conviction—will one day build a life together somewhere “nice, quiet, and simple.”