injusticewatch

Illinois fails to collect wages owed to workers in Cook County

Illinois has strengthened its labor laws and improved efforts to collect stolen wages. But hundreds of cases linger in Cook County court, leaving workers waiting years to be fully compensated, an ...
injusticewatch

Costs triple, delays mount in vital tech contracts

This investigation was reported in collaboration with the Chicago Tribune. In a flurry of contracts inked a decade ago, some of Illinois’ most powerful political figures declared it was time to fix ...
injusticewatch

Rare criminal trial of former Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center employee expected to start Thursday

For decades, allegations of child abuse and employee misconduct have swirled around Chicago’s juvenile detention center. But on Thursday, a Cook County judge will begin proceedings in a rare trial of ...
injusticewatch

Cook County allows tax foreclosures by municipalities. Poor oversight led to misuse by local officials.

Zella Croff, 73, lost her house in south suburban Markham to tax foreclosure in 2023. Credit: Taylor Glascock for the Investigative Project This is a joint project of Injustice Watch and the ...
injusticewatch

In a hyper-local judicial race, questions about what counts as community representation

Griselda Vega Samuel, left, and Steve Demitro campaign on Chicago’s Southwest Side as they compete for a 14th Subcircuit seat on the Cook County Circuit Court. Credit: Photos by Alejandra Cancino and ...
injusticewatch

The Tenant Trap

A yearlong Injustice Watch investigation found tenants are regularly facing eviction and informal displacement at buildings with histories of serious safety violations. We followed tenants using every ...
injusticewatch

ICE contractor locked an immigrant and her baby at an O’Hare hotel for five days

This story was published in partnership with The Intercept, a nonprofit news organization dedicated to holding the powerful accountable through fearless, adversarial journalism. Sign up for The ...
injusticewatch

O’Malley loses retention, becoming third judge in 6 years to be ousted by voters

For the third time in the past four elections, voters removed a Cook County judge from the bench — something which hadn’t happened in the previous three decades. Judge Shannon O’Malley, 62, a ...
injusticewatch

‘Horrific’ video of incident at Chicago’s juvenile jail raises questions about recent trial, experts say

Surveillance video from inside the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center shows former guard Kevin Walker leaving a holding cell after he pushed a 15-year-old boy to the floor on Dec. 14, ...
injusticewatch

State forensic science commission blasts UIC over rogue crime lab

The Illinois Forensic Science Commission, a public body tasked with monitoring practices at the state’s crime labs, sharply criticized the University of Illinois Chicago in a statement last week for ...
injusticewatch

Steps Illinois lawmakers could take to reform the state’s tax sale laws

Illinois is the last state in the nation to adopt reforms aimed at giving homeowners their fair share of tax sale proceeds. Credit: Ashlee Rezin / Sun-Times The Illinois General Assembly is ...
injusticewatch

Questions of race and ethnicity in Illinois Supreme Court race highlight diversity of the Latinx experience

Illinois Supreme Court candidate Jesse Reyes, right, and Cook County Associate Judge Rouhy Shalabi talk to students at Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences, Feb. 12, 2024. Credit: Abel Uribe ...