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Jared Rutecki
investigative/special projects reporter
Jared Rutecki is an investigative/special projects reporter and Producer for Chicago Tonight on WTTW PBS Chicago. He creates stories on state and local government matters, including topics such as pensions, payroll and crime. He was previously an investigative reporter and data coordinator with the Better Government Association/Illinois Answers Project. Jared was a Center for Health Journalism National Health Fellow at the University of Southern California in 2021. His Fellowship project explored dysfunction in Chicago's court system. As a web producer at The Columbus Dispatch for nine years, he produced video, wrote stories, developed applications and managed the content for a variety of sites with an emphasis on breaking news. He began his career as a web producer at ThisWeek News, managing content for 24 community newspapers. He received his B.A. in journalism from Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio and his M.S. in journalism with an emphasis in new media from the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University.
Articles
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The change follows a Sun-Times/Better Government Association investigation last year that documented the impact of “dead end” drug arrests in which people are briefly locked up, only to see the charges soon dismissed.
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In Chicago, police routinely arrest people for possession of small quantities of drugs knowing the charges won’t stick. But the arrests have real consequences.
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Topics
In Chicago, thousands of drug possession arrests are routinely tossed out every year. The cost to taxpayers? Millions. To those arrested? The loss of jobs, housing, freedom.
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The Cook County state’s attorney recently learned her former physical trainer is addicted to heroin and has been in and out of jail for it.
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That state’s new drug reform is keeping users out of jail — but getting them help for addictions has been elusive.
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The BGA and Chicago Sun-Times analyzed 280,000 total drug possession arrests made in Cook County over nearly two decades. The data used was provided by The Circuit, the collaborative journalistic enterprise led by the BGA and Injustice Watch.
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State law targets drug users, jamming courts with throwaway cases that burden justice system and users. A new reporting project digs into the story.