A new report on Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke’s first 500 days in office shows sharp increases in felony charges and prison sentences in retail theft cases.
The report, published by Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts, says O’Neill Burke lowered the felony threshold for retail theft back to $300 on her first day in office. In 2016, her predecessor, Kim Foxx, announced her office would only prosecute retail theft cases as felonies if the $1,000 worth of merchandise or more had been stolen.
Burke’s decision returned that threshold to the same $300 used in the rest of Illinois…