Chicago-Cook County domestic violence task force says systemic gaps are failing survivors

A new report from the Chicago-Cook County Violence Against Women Task Force has identified gasp in the justice system that often fails survivors.

The task force said survivors of abuse and domestic violence are often left to navigate a confusing system where agencies don't share information and, in many cases, don't even collect the same data.

Sarah Brown said that's been her reality for nearly a decade.

"We must do more to support survivors, and it starts with believing them when they speak," she said.

Brown has spent nine and a half years in court and appeared before eight different judges as she navigated her domestic violence case. She said the system has repeatedly failed her.

"It is a very lonely experience," she said.

CBS News Chicago first spoke with Brown six months ago, before the task force released its findings. Now it says survivors like her have been navigated a fragmented system with little transparency. For example, at a hearing on their findings Thursday, they cited communication between the Cook County Sheriff, Chicago police and the courts. The task force said they found that communication can be nonexistent.

"We need to have transparency and data sharing because having that between the city and the county is so critical to public safety," said 23rd Ward Ald. Susann Tabares.

"When you're trying to look at basic numbers like how many orders of protection there are, how many warrants there are, for domestic cases — that data does not exist," said domestic violence advocate Katie Dunne.

Dunne has worked as an advocate in public health and safety for 20 years, and helped lead the task force's research.

"We're still in the 1970s with some of the databases," she said.

While the task force couldn't access key data, CBS News Chicago did. In 2024, we obtained a decade of Cook County records. Our investigation found only about 25% of protection orders were being served, meaning many survivors never got the protections judges ordered.

Task force members said that investigation helped expose a critical weakness that has since seen improvement.

"We know the system now in just not working," Dunne said. "The main component would be the lack of service, so CBS did an amazing analysis a couple years ago using 10 years of data from the county they were able to retrieve. The service rate had been 25%. That rate has now doubled."

The task force said the higher service rate means more survivors have the opportunity to hold their abusers accountable, but improving service rates is only one step. Their report calls for broader changes, including a more coordinated, survivor-centered system.

For Brown, those changes can't come soon enough.

"I'm hopeful that by sharing my story, someone else realizes they are not alone," she said.

Since our 2024 reporting, the Cook County State's Attorney's Office has also expanded its efforts to serve orders of protection in court.

The task force's report also calls for greater transparency, noting the Cook County court system is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act, making it difficult for those researchers, journalists and the public to get critical information, sometimes about their own cases.