More than 60 community, faith, policy, and service-providing organizations have joined the Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice to call on the Cook County Board of Commissioners to take action in response to the Trump administration’s unprecedented dismantling of institutions and programs benefiting marginalized communities, along with cuts to funding for essential social services, states, and local jurisdictions. 

In a letter sent to the Commissioners, we called on them to protect funding for essential services like violence prevention, behavioral health, and community investment to reduce intra-community violence. This can be accomplished by freezing law enforcement spending, which is already far above levels set when the Cook County Department of Corrections and State’s Attorney’s Office had higher utilization.

Over the last decade, Cook County has made tremendous progress in reducing pretrial jailing and improving community safety. This has been a byproduct of both moving away from racist policies promoting mass incarceration and strategically investing in expansions to the social safety net and community-based violence prevention programs. These investments have paid off:

• The number of people incarcerated in the Cook County Jail decreased by nearly 40% over the last decade. That reduction has ensured that thousands of people were able to keep their jobs, homes, and social connections while awaiting trial. 

• Since July 2024, Chicago has experienced a significant decrease in robberies. The first three months of 2025 had the fewest robberies of any quarter in decades.

• Beginning in 2023, murders in Chicago began to decline, and in April 2025, Chicago had the fewest murders recorded in that month since 1962.

• Through mid-June, Chicago has seen a 40% decrease in shootings year-to-date compared to the same period in 2024.

Despite these dramatic decreases, the Cook County Department of Corrections and State’s Attorney’s Office budgets have not seen a reduction that coincides with the dramatic decrease in case filings and pretrial jailing. Rather than investing even more money in prosecution and incarceration, we urge Cook County to freeze law enforcement spending and increase investments in social services aimed at reducing intra-community violence.

With the Trump administration slashing the budgets of many essential services and violence prevention programs and gutting many of the federal programs aimed at supporting the neighborhoods most at risk of community violence, it is essential that Cook County not only avoid cutting budgets for these programs but also increase investments. We urge Cook County to freeze law enforcement spending and increase investments in social services. It is important to note that while the federal government has cut hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for essential social services, federal law enforcement spending has gone untouched and in some cases even increased.

We would be remiss if we did not acknowledge President Trump’s authoritarian attacks on residents of Cook County. Over the last several weeks, there have been repeated threats to the safety of our community members through executive orders targeting people without housing or who have mental health needs. Numerous federal law enforcement agencies have been dispatched to make arrests and deport our neighbors. It is essential at this moment that Cook County expand investments to ensure adequate support of community members targeted by the actions of the Trump administration and everyone impacted by its reduced funding for resources that allow marginalized people to live safe and healthy lives. The County’s investment must include increasing the budget of the Public Defender’s Office, which is responsible for defending increasing numbers of Cook County residents facing both criminal charges and immigration removal proceedings.

Cook County must protect the progress it has made towards increasing community safety and reducing pretrial jailing from a federal administration that has made clear that it does not care about our most vulnerable residents.