that increased criminal penalties for gang members arrested with guns. Gang members convicted under the new law face a mandatory prison sentence and are no longer eligible for parole. She created a Human Trafficking Initiative that works closely with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies to crack down on individuals and human trafficking groups. Alvarez also authored the Illinois Safe Children Act, a sweeping new law that enhanced protections for juveniles caught in the sex trade and provides new legal tools for police and prosecutors to target those who prostitute children. Alvarez was interviewed in a 2012 60 Minutes segment "Chicago: The False Confession Capital", in which she defended police conduct in two cases involving false confessions which were vacated by the courts which issued certificates of innocence to the defendants. Despite the courts' actions and the lack of DNA evidence, Alvarez said in the interview, "I don't know whether he committed the crime or not. There are still unanswered questions in both of these cases that I couldn't sit here and tell you today that they're all guilty or they're all innocent." She admits that in one of the rape cases, they did not find any of the boys' DNA on the victim or in the basement of the house where the crime occurred. In the other case, that of the Dixmoor 5, the DNA found was matched to a convicted rapist. Peter Neufeld, of The Innocence Project says prosecutors rejected the new evidence and suggested necrophilia (having sex with a dead person) as a possible explanation for why a convicted rapist's DNA may have come in contact with the victim, to which Alvarez replied, "It's possible. We have seen cases like that." Alvarez defended Cook County Assessor Joseph Berrios in a suit against Berrios filed in 2001 by Cook County Inspector General Patrick Blanchard. Blanchard was seeking a response from Berrios to a subpoena requesting documents related to a manager in Berrios' office obtaining two exemptions intended for a primary residence. Berrios ignored the subpoena, claiming that the County Inspector General had no authority over him. Eavesdropping prosecutions While in office, Alvarez more than once prosecuted citizens with felony eavesdropping for recording encounters with police. In 2009, Chris Drew recorded his non-violent arrest for street peddling of art. The peddling charge was dropped and Alvarez pursued the much harsher charge of recording police officers' voices without their