State’s Attorney Kim Foxx says she’s ready for one heck of a fight to win a new term as Cook County’s top prosecutor, and she’s not backing down—on her handling of the Jussie Smollett case or anything else.

In her first sit-down media interview in a while today, the reform-minded but controversial prosecutor said that, despite her critics, she’s made great progress that voters soon will learn of, including boosting her office’s conviction rate on cases that are decided by a judge by a whopping 30 percentage points.

She also:

• Declined to say much about the handling of the Smollett case, which now is being reviewed by special prosecutor Dan Webb. But she showed no sign of regret, saying only that there “always are lessons to be learned.” She declined to comment further on the matter.

• Strongly asserted that her efforts to move the county in the direction of noncash bail for most lower-level offenses has paid off, but she conceded that the system “needs to be carefully monitored” and perhaps tweaked to ensure that serious gun offenders are not walking the streets.

• Disputed complaints from the Illinois Retail Merchants Association and others that she effectively has stopped prosecuting cases of retail theft, better known as shoplifting. However, at her direction, the office has unofficially raised the bar for a felony prosecution from a minimum of $300 in stolen goods that’s in current state law to $1,000, she said.

• Indicated that, despite some seeming criticism from Mayor Lori Lightfoot, she, Lightfoot and Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson now talk regularly and are working more closely together. City Hall sources confirmed that.

Foxx’s defense of her tenure generally was clear and unstinting. The county’s first African American female prosecutor promised to focus on certain things, including equity and smart prosecution, during her campaign, and she said she’s done just that.

“This is an office that was mired in reputational damage before,” she said, noting that “60 Minutes” just a few years ago referred to Chicago as the “false confession capital.”

“This is the city where (rogue police commander) Jon Burge ran wild,” she continued. But now, after change, “We’re a national model.” And in the upcoming campaign, “I’m looking forward to the chance to tell people what we’ve done.”

One change has been to focus the office's resources on solid, winnable cases rather than taking a scattershot approach, she said, giving the example of charging everyone in a car in which a gun was found with illegal possession, even though only one person could be legally culpable.

Another is that extensive office records about the status of cases have been filed on the internet, “40 million data points” worth.

A new conviction integrity unit so far has unearthed and vacated 80 improper convictions. The office’s felony bench-trial conviction rate has jumped “30 points” from where it was under predecessor Anita Alvarez. (Data posted on Foxx’s website indicates that the bench-trial conviction rate indeed jumped from the mid-to-upper 30s range under Alvarez to 72.12 percent last year. But it dropped back to 46.54 percent in the first three quarters of this year.) And the office now works much more closely with police to make sure they know what’s needed for a conviction and how to go about getting it, she said.

Foxx, a former chief of staff to County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, underlined that city crime rates, while still high, have been dropping since she took office. She suggested that’s proof that her policies are not too lenient but smart and equitable.

Still, much of the upcoming campaign will be about the validity of that claim.

For instance, data released by Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart at Crain's request indicates that the composition of those released on electronic monitoring has changed sharply since Foxx took office.

On Sept. 30, 2016, for instance, 63 percent of the 2,232 people released on electronic monitoring had been charged with drug offenses or driving without a license. But on Sept. 30 of this year, those numbers turned around, with 55 percent charged with gun or other violent offenses such as murder or criminal sexual assault, and far fewer with drug offenses.

Asked about that, Foxx underlined that her assistants only recommend—“the system is still decisions by judges”—but conceded, “The system isn’t working perfectly. . . .There are (possible changes) that are actively being discussed now.”

Foxx shrugged off complaints that, as Illinois Retail Merchants Association chief Rob Karr put it, “she’s ignoring the law,” with prosecutions way down and losses due to theft way up.

Foxx conceded that the line her office draws between a felony and a misdemeanor shoplifting prosecution—the office does not keep track of the number of misdemeanor cases—is cases involving goods worth at least $300. Instead, she said she draws the line at $1,000, similar to the practice in neighboring states. According to her, the figure used in Indiana is $750, with $2,000 in Wisconsin, $1,000 in Minnesota and $700 in Iowa.

It’s a question of priorities, she argued. “In 2013, the bloodiest year in two decades in Chicago, the No. 1 charge in this office, other than drugs, was retail theft," she said. And “in many cases,” merchants aren’t interested in prosecuting once they get their merchandise back.

It remains to be seen how well that argument will sit with Foxx’s foes and merchants.

Crain's political reporter A.D. Quig contributed.