OUR WORK | POLICY

ORGANIZING & POLICY REFORM

End Demand Illinois

With the generous assistance of the NoVo Foundation, CAASE has launched End Demand, IL, a grassroots campaign to transform Illinois’ prostitution and anti-trafficking laws to reflect the philosophy that trafficked and prostituted individuals should not be criminalized and stigmatized. Instead the focus of law enforcement should be on deterring people from buying sex and arresting and prosecuting traffickers and pimps. EDI will eventually introduce state legislation to reform our laws and towards the creation of an infrastructure of care for prostituted individuals.

To this end, EDI is engaged in the following activities:

• Conducting focus groups with those involved in the sex trade to determine how current law affects them, and how it could be improved
• Organizing survivors of the sex trade to engage in community education, advocacy and policy development efforts
• Engaging in numerous community education, organizing and leadership development efforts in key counties throughout the state.
• Conducting in depth research about pimping and sex trafficking networks in Cook County.
• Conducting public policy research about best practices from other jurisdictions.

CAASE’s core partners on End Demand, IL are the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault, the Polaris Project, the Schiller Ducantu & Fleck Family Law Center at DePaul University and the Women in Power Alumni Association. For a list of steering committee members, please click here.

 

Domestic Sex Trafficking of U.S. Born Adults

Cook County Sheriff’s Office: CAASE is creating a blueprint for a model “demand deterrence” protocol for the Cook County Sheriff’s Office. The goal of this effort is to ensure that those who solicit commercial sex are appropriately arrested, prosecuted and deterred from future solicitation, as well as designing and launching a pilot community engagement campaign to deter commercial sexual activity.. CAASE is also informing the efforts of the Division of Women’s Justice Services towards the creation of a “prostitution court” in Cook County and training Sheriff’s personnel to recognize and serve victims of domestic sex trafficking.

Chicago Police Department: CAASE is organizing training sessions for the Chicago Police Department for personnel to investigate and build cases against domestic sex traffickers. 

 

Improving Cook County’s Response to Sexual Assault

Working with area rape crisis centers and other allies, CAASE is launching community organizing efforts to ensure that the City of Chicago and Cook County are responding to the needs of victims by providing adequate resources for care, and police and prosecutorial accountability.