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Cook County, Ill., prosecutor Kim Foxx unveiled on Tuesday that her office has partnered with San Francisco nonprofit, Code for America to expunge thousands of “minor cannabis convictions” in her jurisdiction just months after marijuana was legalized in the state of Illinois.
This effort under the state’s Attorney General seeks to address social justice will reflect the work that has already been done in different counties in California through the nonprofit, which helps identify and expunge their convictions. California has already identified at least 67,000 convictions, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
READ MORE: Cook County prosecutor Kim Foxx defends decision to drop charges in Jussie Smollett case
The attorney general and states attorneys will have the ability to expunge convictions such as “arrests, charges and orders of supervision or qualified probation” in their jurisdictions.
“When it was time to, in essence, flip the switch, we didn’t want to be like other jurisdictions who were months and years out, trying to figure out how to provide relief,” Foxx said who has been working on this initiative for months.
Currently, there are around 770,000 marijuana convictions that can be erased, but it is not clear how many come from Cook County since Code for America has begun working on any cases yet.
“Obviously we’re marrying what we’re trying to do here first, in the Cook County policy that was then codified in the state law, with technology and innovation,” said Foxx.
Through the technology used to expunge cases, individuals will be notified about their record being erased via mail. Records will be expunged as early as 2021, with the most recent handled first. But, offenses that have other charges tied to them will not be automatically expunged through the software, according to Code for America’s founder and executive director, Jennifer Pahlka.
READ MORE: Seattle moves to vacate hundreds of marijuana convictions over a 14 year period
“To be able to look at this amount [of convictions] … would require a lot of personnel time and technology, for which we’ve had restraints here in Cook County,” Foxx said according to the Sun-Times. “The innovation that [Code for America brings] to this work by being able to easily process this information, identify eligibility, populate forms with that information and generate the necessary documents will allow us to provide conviction relief, we think, in a really timely fashion.”
Code for America is providing its services at no cost, but taxpayers will be responsible for other administrative costs, such mailing.
“In weighing the benefits of this — the ability for people who can have their records vacated and expunged to be able to find employment and housing and other things that will allow them to be contributing, taxpaying members of Cook County — is pretty significant,” Foxx said.
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