Injustice Watch is a nonprofit investigative journalism organization based in Chicago, covering the Circuit Court of Cook County and other parts of the criminal justice system in the region.[1]
Founded | 2015 |
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Founder |
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Type | Investigative journalism |
47-4537172 | |
Legal status | 501(c)(3) |
Focus | Judiciary of Illinois |
Location |
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Area served | Chicagoland |
Budget | $1.14 million (2022) |
Revenue | $2.27 million (2022) |
Website | www |
History
editInjustice Watch was co-founded by Center on Wrongful Convictions founder Rob Warden[2] and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Rick Tulsky in 2015.[3]
Journalism
editThe organization's work has been described as "activism journalism," rejecting the idea of journalistic objectivity in favor of a focus on "fairness" and "ethics."[1] Injustice Watch also publishes a guide for voters to learn more about candidates for election or retention to the state judiciary.[4][5][6]
Reception
editInjustice Watch's coverage of bail hearings,[7] pre-trial detention,[8] and prosecutorial discretion[9][10] have received attention from legal scholars.[11] In 2019, the organization announced the Plain View Project, a database documenting the use of racist language online by police officers,[12][13][14] which has been used as evidence for racial bias in American policing[15] and was a finalist in the 2020 Online Journalism Awards.[16] In 2023, the organization received an award in the "small newsrooms" category from the Better Government Association for its coverage of court-ordered remote alcohol monitoring.[17]
See also
edit- Innocence Project – American legal non-profit founded 1992
- ProPublica – US-based nonprofit investigative journalism organization
References
edit- ^ a b Serrano, Kathryn (2020). Journalism vs. Activism: How the Social Impact of Journalism Has Evolved (M.A. thesis). University of Arkansas.
- ^ "Law Review honors Rob Warden". Injustice Watch. January 30, 2017. Archived from the original on November 7, 2024.
- ^ Tulsky, Rick (November 22, 2015). "Launching Injustice Watch: New voices, new openness". Injustice Watch. Archived from the original on August 29, 2024.
- ^
"Chicago judge election guide: Here's how to research judges on your 2024 ballot". WMAQ-TV. November 4, 2024. Archived from the original on November 7, 2024.
Voters in Cook County can turn to a few different resources, including a massive guide published by Injustice Watch. The interactive guide provides information on 75 circuit court judges and two appellate court judges that are running for retention or election to full terms in the area.
- ^
Newman, Jonah (November 3, 2024). "A guide to the 2024 Cook County judicial retention races". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on November 7, 2024.
Injustice Watch's team of investigative reporters works to fill this gap by providing voters with nonpartisan information about Cook County judicial elections.
- ^ "Injustice watch launches 2020 Judicial Election Guide". Chicago Tonight. October 13, 2020. WTTW. Archived from the original on October 7, 2022.
- ^ Heaton, Paul; Mayson, Sandra; Stevenson, Megan (2017). "The downstream consequences of misdemeanor pretrial detention". Stanford Law Review. 69 (3): 711–794.
- ^
Brink, Malia (2021). "Public defense after the pandemic". Criminal Justice. 36 (3): 45–47. ProQuest 2791357963.
In Illinois, for example, the state supreme court suspended speedy trial rights in April 2020. Asked about reinstatement in June 2021 by Injustice Watch, a spokesperson for the court could not provide a timeline.
- ^ Barkow, Rachel E. (2021). "Can prosecutors end mass incarceration?". Michigan Law Review. 119 (6): 1365–1398. doi:10.36644/mlr.119.6.can.
- ^ Zamouri, Inès (2023). "Self-defense, responsibility, and punishment: Rethinking the criminalization of women who kill their abusive intimate partners". UCLA Journal of Gender and Law. 30 (1): 203–270. doi:10.5070/L330161550.
- ^ Shteynberg, Reveka V.; Worden, Alissa Pollitz (2019). "Bail and pretrial detention reform in the lower courts". In Smith, Alisa; Maddan, Sean (eds.). The Lower Criminal Courts. pp. 119–131. doi:10.4324/9780429268816-12. ISBN 978-0-429-26881-6. OCLC 1082971665.
- ^
Mauldin, Marcus D. (2024). "The ethics of public employees' disparaging private social media use, erosion of trust, and the advancement of the public interest". In Olejarski, Amanda M.; Neal, Sue M. (eds.). Empowering Public Administrators: Ethics and Public Service Values. pp. 122–134. doi:10.4324/9781032651835-10. ISBN 978-1-03-265183-5. OCLC 1411788008. OL 37567416W.
Organizations such as Injustice Watch have begun monitoring and reporting racist and violent social media posts made by law enforcement officers
- ^
Williams, Tom; Haring, Kerstin Sophie (2023). No Justice, No Robots: From the Dispositions of Policing to an Abolitionist Robotics. AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society. p. 570. doi:10.1145/3600211.3604663.
In Philadelphia (where such a group of 72 Philadelphia police officers was uncovered), the Plain View Project revealed that of the 1,000 police profiles identified on Facebook, one in three had posted troubling content and of this third, one in three had had one or more federal civil rights suits filed against them.
- ^ Hoerner, Emily; Tulsky, Rick (2019). "Cops around the country are posting racist and violent comments on Facebook". In Plain View. Injustice Watch. Archived from the original on February 5, 2024.
- ^ Remster, Brianna; Smith, Chris M.; Kramer, Rory (2024). "Race, gender, and police violence in the shadow of controlling images". Social Problems. 71 (2): 353–376. doi:10.1093/socpro/spac018.
- ^ "In Plain View (and related articles)". Online Journalism Awards. Online News Association. 2020. Archived from the original on October 1, 2020.
- ^ "ProPublica, the Chicago Tribune, and Injustice Watch Take Top Honors at 2023 Driehaus Foundation Awards for Investigative Reporting" (Press release). Richard H. Driehaus Foundation. 2023. Archived from the original on May 31, 2023.
External links
edit- Official website
- "Injustice Watch Internal Revenue Service filings". ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer.