Last month, Cook County leaders debuted a new publicly accessible data tool to provide insights into trends in regional criminal justice issues.
The “Cook County Criminal Justice Dashboard” was created with funding from the MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge and developed in conjunction with Loyola University of Chicago’s Center for Criminal Justice researchers, according to county officials.
The tool’s debut follows large changes to the county’s criminal justice administration, including the elimination of cash bail in 2023 and a sharp decrease in Chicago arrests that’s largely held steady since the COVID-19 Pandemic. The tool includes statistics on incidents and arrests, criminal case filings, jail bookings and releases, pretrial release decisions, sentences and prison and parole populations, according to county officials.
“The Cook County Criminal Justice Dashboard reflects the ongoing collaboration among our justice system partners,” said Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle. “It shows our shared commitment to transparency and to making the criminal legal system work better for the public. We’re proud to share this tool to help residents better understand how the justice system affects people and communities across Cook County.”
The dashboard project sources data from the Office of the Chief Judge, the Cook County State’s Attorney, Cook County Sheriff’s Office, the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County and the Law Office of the Cook County Public Defender, according to county officials. It features data dating back to the beginning of 2018.
“With these tools, I hope the public will be able to gain a better understanding of our criminal legal system, including the impact policy can have on a person after an arrest,” said Cook County Public Defender Sharone R. Mitchell. “By bringing data from all our offices together in a shared commitment to transparency and accountability, I hope we can promote discussions and inspire critical analysis that provides a more holistic view of how our courts operate, instead of only focusing on stories about the outliers.”
The tool breaks down quarterly court operation statistics by jurisdiction, including District 4, which takes cases from west Cook County municipalities like Oak Park, River Forest, Forest Park, Berwyn, Brookfield and Riverside. So far in 2025, 8% of all Cook County criminal cases have come from District 4 communities, a nearly identical share to the number of cases coming out of the county’s southern and southwestern suburban court districts, according to county statistics.
The number of criminal cases filed in the county rose last year, although it is still far from the system’s pre-COVID heights. In 2024, the county-wide system processed 61,507 new criminal charges, compared to 55,233 in 2023 and 86,434 in 2019. There were 16,653 new criminal charges filed in the first quarter of this year, according to county statistics.
District 4 criminal case filings topped 5,000 for the first time since 2019 last year with 5,248. There were 1,308 new filings in District 4 in the first quarter of 2025, according to county data.
The most common charge in District 4 and Cook County on the whole is domestic battery or aggravated domestic battery, of which there were 208 cases in 2025’s first quarter, according to county statistics.
The tool presently only features Chicago crime data. The data featured in the tool regarding incident reports does not show a proportional decrease in the annual number of incidents reported to police by residents since, suggesting that the large decrease in arrests and criminal charges is likely the result of shifting law enforcement strategies.
The new dashboard will allow residents to understand the facts of the local criminal justice system better than before, the tool’s developers hope.
“Our hope is that engaging with a variety of data, all in one place, helps those looking to understand how the system functions to better explore their questions and gain insights,” said Don Stemen, Co-director of the Loyola University of Chicago’s Center for Criminal Justice Research.
