Felony charges and prison sentences for retail theft surged in 2025 under Cook County State's Attorney Eileen O'Neill Burke, report finds
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.
The result was felony retail theft charges nearly doubled in 2025, and prison sentences for those cases more than doubled.
The Chicago Appleseed report criticized O'Neill Burke's policy changes, alleging they "impose higher charges and harsher pretrial conditions in an indiscriminate manner."
"Many ramifications of these policies cannot yet be fully understood or quantified; immediately, though, they represent a dangerous departure from the reform-oriented prosecution of Burke's predecessor and a return to the tough-on-crime prosecution that weakened Cook County communities for decades," the report states.
For domestic battery cases, O'Neill Burke filed detention petitions at more than double the rate of her predecessor, resulting in roughly 1,400 people jailed before their trial, compared to 450 the year before.
The report also said O'Neill Burke eliminated lists that tracked police officers with histories of misconduct or false testimony.
"She replaced these lists with a much less comprehensive list, and reduced the avenues that her office will take to determine the credibility of police witnesses," said Chicago Appleseed research manager Austin Segal.
In response to the report, a spokesperson for O'Neill Burke's office said they believe their pre-trial detention policies are one of many factors that contributed to Chicago's drop in violent crime last year.
