After City of Chicago v. Morales: If Youth "Hang Out" on the Street, Are They Breaking the Law? Experts Meet the experts who answered students' questions for the Chicago v. Morales summit. Rita Fry Rita Fry is Chief Executive of the Office of the Cook County, Illinois Public Defender, the jurisdiction in which the City of Chicago lies. She represented Jesus Morales and the other defendants in challenging the Chicago anti-gang loitering ordinance, and argued the case before the Supreme Court in December of 1998. Ms. Fry has served in various legal offices for the City of Chicago since 1980. She has presented testimony before the Illinois Supreme Court Special Commission on the Administration of Justice, Juvenile Justice Task Force; the Subcommittee on Human Resources of the Committee on Ways and Means of the U.S. House of Representatives, Oversight Hearing on Child Welfare Issues; The Governor’s Task Force on Crime and Corrections, Changing the Focus of the War on Drugs; and the Chicago Bar Association, Justice for Youth Project, Insufficient Resources for Juvenile Justice. In 1994 she was selected by the President of the Supreme Court of Ethiopia to assist in establishing a long-term administrative structure for Ethiopia’s first public defender system. She received her J.D. in 1979 from Northwestern University College of Law, and her B.A. from Loyola University in 1968. Catherine M. Coles Dr. Catherine Coles is a research associate in the Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and at the School of Criminal Justice, Rutgers University. Formerly she taught in the Local Government Studies Department at Ahmadu Bellow University, Zaria, Nigeria (1979-81), and was a professor of anthropology and African Studies at Dartmouth College from 1983-1990. Dr. Coles's interests lie in prosecution, the courts, constitutional and criminal law, community justice, and public policy related to these areas. She has studied the changing roles of prosecutors and their organizations through a project funded by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) entitled "Prosecution in the Community: A Study of Emergent Strategies." She has also conducted case studies of the development of community policing in Savannah, Georgia, and Saint Paul, Minnesota. Currently she is completing an NIJ-funded study of Boston's Safe Neighborhood Initiatives (SNIs), community-oriented collaborations involving the District Attorney's Office, the State Attorney General's Office, police departments, and citizens in local neighborhoods. Dr. Coles is co-author with Dr. George Kelling of Fixing Broken Windows: Restoring Order and Reducing Crime in Our Communities (The Free Press, 1996). Most recently she authored "New Approaches to Fighting Crime: Prevention through Community Prosecution," in The Public Interest (summer 1999). Alejandro A. Alonso Mr. Alonso has been researching gangs in Los Angeles for several years and has developed a unique perspective on them. (See his website Gangs in Los Angeles County.) He has spent most of his life in the barrio and neighborhoods that have been exposed to gang activity. He is familiar with the rise of gangs in New York during the 1970s, and during the 1980s was exposed to gang life in Los Angeles while living and attending school in the community. Mr. Alonso has done research addressing serious questions about the social construction of gangs in Los Angeles, the history of gang conflict, and the proliferation of gang activity. He has appeared on national public and network television and radio shows talking about gangs, and has been quoted in newspapers such as the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. Mr. Alonso has also counseled gang members. Mr. Alonso holds an M.A. in Geography from the University of Southern California (1998) and a B.A. in Environmental Studies from the University of Southern California (1995). >>Summit Section Home >>Pilot Classrooms >>Discussion >>Experts >>Student Poll >>Students Only Fall 1999 Summit Home | Summit | The Case | Legal Background | Related Cases Interest Groups | Chicago Context | Gangs | Lessons/Activities | News Accounts Related Issues National Online Youth Summit Home