Shannon Heffernan
Criminal Justice Reporter | WBEZShannon is a criminal justice reporter. She’s also reported on mental health, poverty, labor and climate change.
Her reporting has earned her a Third Coast International Audio Festival Award, a National Murrow Award for best writing and a PRINDI for best writing, as well as awards from the Illinois AP and Chicago Headline Club. She worked on the 16 Shots podcast, which was a Scripps Howard finalist. Her work has been heard on local and national programming, including This American Life.
Shannon also writes short fictional stories and has been published Hobart, The Indiana Review and The Columbia Review, where she won the 2016 prize for fiction.
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Experts say the doomsday scenarios surrounding the controversial criminal justice reform aren’t likely to materialize. But big changes are coming. -
Illinois lawmakers said hundreds would be released thanks to the Joe Coleman Medical Release Act. But so far, just 52 of them have gotten out. -
The future of cash bail in Illinois is in the hands of the state’s Supreme Court.
