Envisioning Justice

• Reimagine or imagine alternatives to the criminal legal system.
• Connect diverse perspectives and people from across the state with one other to examine the impact of incarceration on local communities.
• Amplify existing advocacy, strengthen networks of advocates, and build the capacity of organizations and people engaged in this work.
• Support innovative collaborations and relationships among community residents and leaders, scholars, artists, and policy makers centering the voices of those most directly affected by the issue.
• Inspire activity around public policy changes and articulate a new model for community engagement in public policy.

Envisioning Justice is grounded in the idea that arts and humanities work has the power to connect diverse individuals and communities to engage with serious policy issues in a way that can offer pathways to meaningful change. Through Envisioning Justice, Illinois Humanities creates programming, fosters relationships, and strengthens organizations seeking to connect and empower communities to address the impact of incarceration and imagine a truly just society.

The US has 5 percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of its prisoners. Crime rates have decreased for over a decade, but rates of incarceration have not decreased at nearly the same rate. The annual rate of admission to jails doubled from 1983 to 2013. Current rates of incarceration costs US taxpayers $80 billion per  year, diverting money from schools, critical infrastructure, and job training. And then there is the emotional cost to families; the moral cost of a system that disproportionately targets people of color (African Americans are jailed at eight times the rate of whites; African American and Latinx people comprise over half the population of jails while making up only 30 percent of the general population); the increased future health cost faced by the formerly incarcerated; and the loss of public faith in institutions.

Cook County is no exception when it comes to this disparity, but is also the home to a diversity of creative responses to criminal justice issues. From the development of the restorative justice model, to new models of coalition-building, to creative direct action and artistic interventions, Chicago is home to a variety of groups addressing the issue in their own communities.

In Cook County, we have begun to make progress on lowering rates of incarceration but a greater level of awareness and participation is needed to achieve transformation. And the community groups working on the issue need their voices amplified, and need the capacity and connections to have a more meaningful impact. Envisioning Justice helps connect these groups to one other, to policy makers, to artists and activists, and to resources for individuals and communities impacted negatively by the system.

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