Jamie Kalven (born 1948) is an American journalist, author, human rights activist, and community
organizer based in Chicago, Illinois. He is the founder of the Invisible Institute, a non-profit
journalism organization based in Chicago's South Side. His work in the city has included reporting
on police misconduct and poor conditions of public housing. Kalven has been referred to as
a "guerrilla journalist" by Chicago journalist Studs Terkel.
He is the son of Harry Kalven, a law professor who left behind an unfinished manuscript on freedom
of speech upon his death in 1974. Jamie finished the manuscript over the following 14 years.
Following a sexual assault on his wife, Patricia Evans, Kalven wrote a memoir as a resource to
support victims of rape. He also reported on living conditions at the Stateway Gardens housing
development in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago. Along with Evans and an associate, Kalven
founded the Invisible Institute as an informal journalism and community organizing team at
Stateway. His reporting on abuse by Chicago police at Stateway eventually led to litigation
seeking the release of police misconduct records, which Kalven won in 2014. The case –
Kalven v. City of Chicago – resulted in a landmark decision, holding that police misconduct
records are public information under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act.
Having obtained the police records, the Invisible Institute incorporated as a nonprofit
organization soon thereafter. The Institute created the Citizens Police Data Project and
became a hub for information related to police misconduct, wrongful convictions, and reports
from police whistleblowers. Kalven reported on the murder of Laquan McDonald by a police
officer in 2014. He obtained a copy of an autopsy report showing that McDonald had been shot
16 times execution-style, contradicting official reports of a single gunshot wound.
Kalven won the Ridenhour Courage Prize for this reporting. He later co-produced 16 Shots,
a documentary about McDonald's murder. The Institute won the Pulitzer Prize for National
Reporting in 2021, and Kalven stepped down as director in the same year.