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Jamie Kalven is the author of Working With Available Light: A Family’s World After Violence and the editor of A Worthy Tradition: Free Speech in America written by his father Harry Kalven, Jr. He is also the founder of the Invisible Institute, a journalism production company on Chicago’s South Side that works to enhance the capacity of citizens to hold public institutions accountable.

While immersed in high rise public housing as a resident consultant, Jamie began to document patterns of police abuse and impunity. His reporting gave rise to several federal civil rights suits, and he was the plaintiff in Kalven v. Chicago, in which the Illinois appellate court ruled that police misconduct files are public information. In the wake of that watershed decision, the Invisible Institute created the Citizens Police Data Project, the largest repository of police misconduct complaints in the nation.

Jamie was the first journalist to investigate the police shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. His reporting brought the incident to public attention and is widely credited with contributing to the conditions for police reform in Chicago. Among the acknowledgments received for his work are the 2015 George Polk Award for Local Reporting and the 2016 Ridenhour Courage Prize.
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