REAL CLEAR POLITICS
After 20 Years as a Prosecutor in Illinois, I Quit
Jason Poje
May 10, 2023

Editor’s note: The following is an email written by Cook County prosecutor Jason Poje, circulated to colleagues last week.

To my colleagues: After 20 years, I always kind of figured an email like this would start with “It is with a heavy heart that I leave…” The truth is, I can’t get out of here fast enough…And yet, I’m leaving. Why could that be? The simple fact is that this State and County have set themselves on a course to disaster. And the worst part is that the agency for whom I work has backed literally every policy change that had the predictable, and predicted, outcome of more crime and more people getting hurt…I will not raise my son here. I am fortunate enough to have the means to escape, so my entire family is leaving the State of Illinois. I grew up here, my family and friends are here, and yet my own employer has turned it into a place from which I am no longer proud to be, and in which my son is not safe. READ MORE