The Illinois Prison Project

Activism

The Illinois Prison Project has provided legal services and engaged in lobbying initiatives to oppose stronger criminal justice enforcement in Illinois. The organization’s mission statement declared “deeply ingrained systemic racism” is a factor for incarceration. The organization’s mission also included “fight[ing] against regressive policies, racist practices,” and the criminal justice system which the IPP has viewed as hopeless, compassionless, and inhumane. ³ The IPP also has listed at least four “principles” of which one was “our criminal legal system is rooted in racism.” ¹

The organization’s Twitter page has included as of September 2022 a post that said, “Don’t know who needs to hear this but there is no such thing as a ‘humane’ prison. #FreeThemAll.” ⁴ In April 2020, both the IPP and its funder, Restore Justice, published recommendations to “expand and accelerate early prison releases throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.” ⁵ The organization has supported criminal law changes in Illinois, such as the SAFE-T Act to eliminate cash bail and challenge police practices. It has also publically denied that those changes had any connection to the subsequent 2022 nationwide uptick in violent crime. ⁶

Treatment Not Torture

Treatment Not Torture is an IPP campaign opposed to solitary confinement, particularly with the mentally ill, in the penal system. The campaign has been active since 2021 and was the primary campaign listed on the IPP website. ⁷ The IPP stated that the practice of solitary confinement is torture and has claimed the practice is also racially discriminatory. ⁸

We Are More

A post about the We Are More campaign was the pinned tweet from the IPP Twitter page as of 2022, and in tweet the campaign stated critics against lenient criminal sentencing are “fear mongering.” ⁹ The campaign would present formerly-incarcerated individuals to criticize sentencing practices. ⁶

Funding

The IPP was originally fiscally sponsored by the similarly left-of-center criminal leniency organization, the Restore Justice Foundation. As of 2020, the IPP and Restore Justice completed a back-end merger under which IPP was afterwards under the Restore Justice nonprofit. ¹⁰ According to the tax returns of Restore Justice, $53,011 was the start-of-year assets for the IPP. ¹¹

Several foundations have publically supported the IPP. Funders include Crossroads Fund, Arnold Ventures, Albert and Anne Mansfield Foundation, Chicago Foundation for Women, Illinois Humanities, The Reva and David Logan Foundation, Illinois Access to Justice, and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation. ¹

Leadership

Jennifer Soble is the founder and has also worked as the executive director of the Illinois Prison Project. Previously, Soble was a staff attorney in the trial division of the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia and an Assistant Federal Defender in the Northern District of Indiana. She had also served as a Senior Legal Counsel to the Tides Center project the Justice Collaborative. ¹

On her personal Twitter page, Soble had pinned a 2021 tweet which said, “Prosecutors keep arguing that clemency should be reserved for ‘miscarriages of justice.’ That’s bulls[**]t. Clemency is mercy, and we must create space for and normalize mercy every chance we get. #commutation #clemency #mercy #secondchances.” The statement was part of a series of tweets which advocated for a continuous and aggressive use of leniency in the criminal justice system. ¹²