We are excited to share our 2025 Year at a Glance! This quick report includes some of the most notable highlights from our programs in 2025. We’re grateful for our team’s hard work in making these accomplishments happen and bringing our mission to life through their work every day. It was a unique and challenging year, but also one full of new wins and achievements. Learn more about the ways we worked towards a community free from all forms of sexual exploitation in our 2025 Year at a Glance below, or click here to view the one-pager.
Reaching New Corners in Our Communities
In 2025, the Community Engagement team reached 61 community organizations, colleges, and universities, engaging with over 180 people. We also hosted or participated in over 60 public awareness events!
The team continued to venture into new spaces where survivor support is needed. One of our biggest priorities for 2025 was making new connections in faith-based communities, where there is often an added layer of stigma in addressing sexual harm. Despite the challenges, these faith-based partner organizations were eager to start open and needed conversations. To address this, the team created special programming, including a personalized event for our partner, Grapsate, a Black faith-based organization, during Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM). Community Engagement also connected them with a local Rape Crisis Center who trained them and participated in a SAAM panel. A CAASE attorney participated, too, sharing as much knowledge and options as possible with this group.
Other new partnerships in 2025 included Bally’s Casino and Strugglebeard Bakery. Spreading awareness is an invaluable part of the fight to end sexual harm, and we’re so thrilled that our Community Engagement team focuses on activating more allies in our mission
Community Engagement at a Pride South Side Event July 2025
Expanding Options For Incarcerated Survivors
2025 was another record-breaking year for CAASE’s Legal Services team, which took on 28 pro bono cases, served 244 clients, and helped with 408 total matters.
In September, we filed seven lawsuits against prison officials at Logan Correctional Center, Illinois’s largest women’s prison, for sexual abuse of women in custody by corrections staff. Partnering with multiple pro bono firms and the Uptown People’s Law Center, CAASE brought these cases as part of our Criminalized Survivors Project, which helps currently and formerly incarcerated survivors of sexual harm. This project has grown exponentially since its start in 2024, with CAASE attorneys handling 85 different cases for criminalized survivors in 2025.
CAASE attorneys presented at various local conferences as well as national and international events such as the Crime Victim Law Conference in Portland, the Victim Rights Law Center National Sexual Assault Conference, and an event hosted by the Women’s Human Rights Institute of Korea and the U.S. Embassy Seoul.
Our attorneys continue to do innovative work that supports survivors navigating the aftermath of sexual harm so that healing and justice are a closer reality.
“I think everyone should have access to this kind of service. It played a pivotal role in my healing.”
– Legal Services client
The Legal team at the Women’s Justice Institute Winter Wonderland event in December
Celebrating Student Empowerment
Last school year marked a special milestone for our Prevention Education program when we officially reached 40,000 students since the program’s start! Prevention partnered with 11 schools and served 3,197 students.
We hosted a brand-new prevention-focused spring fundraiser called A CAASE of Empowerment, which was a huge success! It was a special evening where guests participated in a prevention workshop and saw how we approach the ever-evolving landscape in schools and in young people’s lives.
Our Prevention team also presented at the National Sexual Assault Conference in Anaheim, California, and at ICASA’s state-wide Rape Prevention Education conference. Partners across the country have taken an interest in the way CAASE’s program creates engaging, nonjudgmental workshops for youth. We’re thrilled to see our curriculum making an impact both in classrooms locally and with partners across the country to uplift and cultivate young people’s safety. Collaborating is powerful in preventing sexual harm.
“Because of what I’ve learned, I will show compassion, be mindful, not hold people to harmful norms, be respectful, and ask for consent.”
– 9th grade Prevention Education student
The Prevention Education team answers audience questions at A CAASE of Empowerment in May 2025
Supporting Survivors via Criminal Justice Reform
As CAASE’s work with incarcerated and criminalized survivors became a focal point of our Legal Services in 2025, it did for our policy work too. In public policy, we see firsthand that ending gender-based violence requires criminal justice reform. This year, we prioritized that through our work with criminalized survivors, including those who have been harmed in the sex trade.
In 2025, we were proud to see the Prostitution Investigation Act signed into law! It requires that state law enforcement agencies prohibit officers from engaging in penetrative sex acts with individuals they are investigating for prostitution. We knew this was an issue from our Policing & Enforcement of Prostitution Laws in Chicago research. The law also mandated the creation of systems to automatically expunge most felony prostitution convictions.
Our Public Policy and Advocacy work and wins are only possible through the coalitions we partner with. In particular, membership in The Network and collaborating with other members to address gender-based violence helps make progress in improving the lives of survivors in our communities and beyond. We look forward to continuing our efforts to make our systems less traumatizing and more supportive for survivors.
Thank you for your continued support in 2025! CAASE envisions a community free from all forms of sexual exploitation, including sexual assault and the commercial sex trade. CAASE addresses the culture, institutions, and individuals that perpetrate, profit from, or support sexual exploitation. Our work includes prevention, policy reform, community engagement, and legal services. Click here to learn more about our work.
This piece was published on February 24, 2026. It was designed and authored by Lizzy Springer with input from CAASE’s program directors and edited by Ryan Spooner. Learn more about our staff here.
