Daily Update: March 16

• Our Open Letter to Cook County, which we posted Friday, is gaining some press traction. Please contact Sharlyn Grace (sharlyn@chicagobond.org) if you would like your organization's name added to the letter.
• There is a piece in the Chicago Reporter highlighting our open letter. Please share widely on your networks. 
• Sarah Staudt from Appleseed and Matt McLoughlin at CCBF have talked to reporters at Pro Publica and Injustice Watch about the open letter; we should expect an Injustice Watch article sometime tonight, which may include a quote I actually said to them and pretty much encapsulates my entire mood, which was "There are just so many different things to worry about!
• Chicago Community Bond Fund has continued to update this excellent twitter thread cataloguing different jurisdictions' criminal justice and jail related responses to COVID-19. Please send anything else you see to Matt (matt@chicagobond.org or 215-480-5498).
• Sarah Grady (sarah@loevy.com) has taken the lead on drafting this letter to City Officials with demands regarding policing and slowing down arrests for low level offenses and outstanding warrants. Please contact Sarah ASAP if your organization wants to sign on. 
• Uptown People's Law Center has been working on This Letter to the Governor regarding IDOC conditions and priorities for release in light of COVID-19. Please contact Sarah Grady (sarah@loevy.com) if your organization would like to sign on. 
• Locke Bowman (l-bowman@law.northwestern.edu) and others are working on a letter urging Amy Campanelli, the Public Defender, to take certain actions to help depopulate the jail. This is delicate, obviously, since the PD's office really should be our ally on this. Please let me (sarahstaudt@chicagoappleseed.org) or Locke know if you would like to be a part of those conversations OR if you have any inside information to share about the PD office's response. 
• Alysia Tate (alysiatate@cgla.net) from CGLA has offered to convene a conversation about strategy going forward, in terms of how we can get stakeholders to sit down at a table with each other and find solutions. You can email Alysia if you want in on that big picture conversation.
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What We Need Help With

• Our quest for press attention to this issue is going to continue. We are way behind other municipalities in terms of their decarceration response, and still have yet to see an official statement from any elected official committing to doing anything about the jail population. If you have connections, particularly with the major papers (Trib and Sun Times) please leverage them/let me or Sharlyn know how to leverage them.
• Pro Publica has a particular request for two things: (1) A way to talk to a current inmate at Cook County jail and/or a way to talk to a family member of someone currently in the jail and (2) information on how other jails in the rest of the state are responding. Please email me if you have ideas on either front.
• I need help working on a letter to the Chief Judge regarding JTDC, Probation, and other things that are under his control. I know I have a small list of people from the call last week who were willing to help; please email me if you have capacity to work on this tomorrow. I would like to get it out tomorrow evening or Wednesday morning.
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