WBEZ | Toni Preckwinkle

Preckwinkle, Dart sound alarms on jail overcrowding

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 17:25:00 -0500

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle Wednesday called on judges to release more people on electronic monitoring to help deal with overcrowding at Cook County Jail. According to Preckwinkle, as of Monday there were 10,008 people in the jail, which has a capacity of 10,150.

The jail population typically grows by a few thousand going into the summer, and Preckwinkle says allowing people accused of crimes to await trial from home could curb the problem.

“It’s a waste of public resources to put more money into jail beds,” said Preckwinkle, noting that 70 percent of the people awaiting trial in Cook County are charged with nonviolent offenses.

Speaking on WBEZ’s Afternoon Shift Wednesday, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart echoed the sentiment, noting that electronic monitoring costs about a fifth of the $150 a day it costs to house someone at the jail.

“They’re sitting in their house, they’re feeding themselves, they’re going back and forth to court dates by themselves, they’re going to work, they’re taking care of their families, all of the above, as opposed to sitting in jail where we’re paying for everything,” Dart said. “My overtime budget is exploding right now.”

Both Preckwinkle and Dart said they’re not sure why the number of people on electronic monitoring has recently dropped, and Preckwinkle also called on the Sheriff himself to use his power to release people.

Dart said he’s already doing everything he can, adding that bond hearing judges should be the ones taking action.

“The only people I was not putting out [on electronic monitoring] were people that didn’t have a house to go to,” Dart said. “There’s no one that has a more vested interest in making sure that the electronic monitoring is a robust system than me.”

But a statement by Circuit Court of Cook County Chief Judge Timothy C. Evans hit the ball straight back into Dart’s court, pointing to a federal court order that gives Dart the power to release people.

"According to Illinois law, the purpose of a bail hearing is for a judge to decide how best to ensure the return of the defendant to court and to protect public safety,” Evans wrote. “The purpose of a bail hearing is not to reduce the jail population.”

Neither Dart nor Preckwinkle suggested what measures they will take if the jail population isn’t somehow curbed by summer.

“Historically the system just wouldn’t handle it,” Dart said. “We’d just start putting people on the floors, we’d have three people in a two-person room, we’d have the living units ... literally covered with mattresses all over the place.”

Preckwinkle said overcrowding will be number one on the agenda at a meeting of public safety officials Friday.

Follow Lewis Wallace on Twitter @LewisPants.

Cook County land bank aimed at ending blight

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 11:32:00 -0600

Cook County has a new tool to help return vacant and abandoned properties to the tax rolls.

The Cook County Board voted unanimously to create the Cook County Land Bank Authority. The agency will promote redevelopment of vacant, foreclosed and tax-delinquent properties.

In a press release, Board President Toni Preckwinkle says land banks have been effective tools to combat the foreclosure crisis in other communities. She says more than 80 local governments in 23 states have land banks.

Cook County's land bank will be overseen by a 13-member board. Members will have experience in banking, real estate and development.

The land back will be able to hold property on a tax-exempt basis to eliminate back taxes and clear title. It will use a mix of county money, grants and donations.

New Cook County phone contract will save families money

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 02:23:00 -0600

For a long time inmates at the Cook County Jail and their mostly poor families have been hammered by the high cost of phone calls. That's partly because the county has been making a profit from the calls detainees make to people outside.

But county board President Toni Preckwinkle will sign a new contract Tuesday to significantly reduce the cost of those calls. The county will continue to make $300,000 a month off the deal.

Cecily Cortez works as a housekeeper at the Marriott Hotel on Michigan Avenue and has a son. Her fiancé was charged with residential burglary. The calls from him are expensive, but she said they're priceless and way better than letters.

"You get to hear his voice, feel his emotions through his words and pretty much it's just more contact rather than something written,” Cortez said.

The cost of phone calls is tough on Monica Ingram too. She’s a nurse providing homecare for a quadriplegic person. She recently received a text from her cell phone company saying she needed to pay her bill before she could receive more collect calls from the jail. She'd already spent $60 on the calls that week and broke down into tears as she said she’s been forced to start ignoring her son's calls.

“That bothers me and that bothers me, because he always says 'don't stress, I don't want you to stress over anything' but I got to deny his calls sometimes," Ingram said. "What can you do?”

The county has given an exclusive contract to Securus Technologies, a company that, according to its website, operates phone systems in 2,200 jails and prisons across the country. Securus charges inflated phone rates then pays back to Cook County 57.5 percent of the revenue.

When WBEZ first reported on this last spring, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle said she thought it was wrong for the county to view inmates as a revenue source, but the county continues to make $300,000 a month from the contract. And next year's budget counts on at least another $3 million. Preckwinkle's long-term plan is still to stop the practice.

“So the president has made it abundantly clear that by 2014 all of the calls in Cook County will be revenue neutral, or I won't be here," said Cook County chief information officer Lydia Murray. "We will not be talking. So she has made it abundantly clear that this year is a transition year and we're lowering the rates.”

Since September, it’s been Murray's job to oversee the contract. She negotiated the new deal with the phone company, which Preckwinkle is announcing Tuesday.

“They are going to cut many of the calls in half and double the time that detainees can talk to their family and friends,” Murray said.

For example, Securus charges a more than $3 connection fee for every call and calls are cut off after 15 minutes so the caller has to pay another connection fee. Now calls can last as long as 30 minutes. Including the per-minute rates, under the new deal a 30-minute call will cost $7. Last spring, that would have cost $30.

Under Preckwinkle the county was able to ring out millions of dollars in concessions from Securus.

The company did not immediately return calls for comment.

Cook County Board Commissioner Larry Suffredin said it seems the county wasn't paying much attention to how the contract affected the families of inmates.

“I think that we were asleep at the switch,” Suffredin said. “The company sees this as a very valuable contract for them, and once we put some pressure on them they seemed very amenable to re-negotiating this contract.”

The new deal extends the Securus contract by a year, which means it gets to keep exclusive access to 9,000 detainees who make 160,000 calls a month. Under the new plan, detainees and their families will have fewer calling plans to choose from, but a 15-minute call will be $4 instead of $10 or $15. The price could come down even more if the county gives up its $3.5 million in yearly profits by 2014.

Cook County’s disregard of ICE detainers catches on

Wed, 11 Jul 2012 16:39:00 -0500

A Cook County policy of disregarding immigration detainers is catching on. Lawmakers in other parts of the country, most recently the District of Columbia on Tuesday, have approved bills modeled after the policy.

Some Republicans are pressing President Barack Obama’s administration to take reprisals against those jurisdictions. In a hearing Tuesday, the chairwoman of a U.S. House homeland security panel urged Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton to punish Cook County for its stand.

The detainers — ICE requests that local jails hold specified individuals up to two business days beyond what their criminal cases require — help put the inmates into deportation proceedings. Jail compliance with detainers is a key part of Secure Communities, a program that has helped the Obama administration shift immigration enforcement toward criminals.

Cook County officials say detainers also erode community trust in local police. Last September, the County Board approved an ordinance that halted detainer compliance by the county’s massive jail. ICE abruptly lost convenient access to hundreds of immigration violators each year.

“The Cook County legislation was very critical and a part of the development for the legislation in the District of Columbia,” said Ron Hampton, a retired Metropolitan Police officer in the nation’s capital who has pushed the D.C. bill.

Hampton pointed to a legal opinion that supporters of the Cook County measure obtained from State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez’s office last year. That opinion, citing a federal court ruling in Indiana, called detainer compliance voluntary and helped convince the Cook County Board to approve the ordinance. Hampton said the opinion added weight to what he called “a model piece of legislation.”

Since the Cook County ordinance passed, New York City, the state of Connecticut and the California county of Santa Clara have also curtailed their compliance with immigration detainers.

On July 5, the California Senate approved similar legislation that would affect the entire state. That bill is expected to pass the state Assembly. Gov. Jerry Brown has not indicated whether he would sign it into law.

At the U.S. House hearing, Rep. Candice Miller (R-Michigan) said Secure Communities had “excellent buy-in” from jurisdictions across the nation. Miller, chairwoman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security, called Cook County “the big holdout” and asked Morton about it.

Morton repeated an administration claim that Cook County’s disregard of ICE detainers compromised public safety. That claim was the subject of a WBEZ investigation completed in May. Inmates freed as a result of the ordinance, the investigation found, have not reoffended or jumped bail more than other former inmates have.

Morton also told the subcommittee about letters he had written to Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle to spell out his concerns. “We have been working with the county to see if there isn’t some solution,” Morton said. “I won’t sugarcoat it. I don’t think that that approach is going to work in full. We’re going to need the help of others. We have been exploring our options under federal law with the Department of Justice.”

Morton said he would also push for a cutoff of some federal funds for the county’s jail.

That vow won praise from Miller. “I can’t tell you how delighted I am,” she said. “If they’re not going to assist us in removing not only criminal aliens but those that might go on to commit a terrorist attack or what-have-you, because they want to have their city become a sanctuary, the federal government cannot stand by idly and allow that to happen.”

As other jurisdictions adopt the Cook County approach, some enforcement advocates are calling for a tougher federal response.

Ira Mehlman, spokesman of the Washington-based Federation for American Immigration Reform, points out that the Obama administration has sued states such as Arizona and Alabama for taking immigration enforcement into their own hands

“Yet, when it comes to jurisdictions that have openly defied federal enforcement, then the Justice Department seems to have enormous patience and is extremely lenient,” Mehlman said.

Preckwinkle and Dart reviewing jail phone contract

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 09:26:29 -0500

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and Sheriff Tom Dart say they're reviewing a controversial phone contract at the jail that charges inmates inflated phone rates. On the high end, calls can cost $15 for 15 minutes. The cheap calls are about $7, though the county could immediately cut that price in half.

The county's contract with the phone company, Securus, requires the company to pay the county 57.5 percent of the revenue from the calls. It equals about $4 million a year, but that money comes from the largely poor families of inmates, many of whom can't even afford to post bond to get their loved one out of jail while awaiting trial.

Through spokesmen, Preckwinkle and Dart have both been blaming each other for the contract. Those spokesmen say the two elected officials are reviewing the contract, though they say it would be premature to comment further.

Both Preckwinkle and Dart have refused WBEZ's repeated requests over the last several weeks to personally discuss the issue.

Preckwinkle calling for end to $15 phone charges in Cook County Jail

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 20:34:00 -0500

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is calling on the jail to stop a phone service that charges inmates $15 for 15-minute calls. According to Preckwinkle's spokesman, the board president just learned about the $15 calls when WBEZ approached her office for comment last week.

Preckwinkle's office said the agreement for the $15 calls did not go through her office. She's recommending that the county discontinue what she calls a side deal which that Sheriff Tom Dart made with Securus Technologies, the company that has an exclusive contract to run the phone system in the jail.

Securus Technologies will not explain to WBEZ why those calls have to cost $15, or what that $15 pays for.

Preckwinkle and Dart have both been denying that they pushed for the revenue sharing contract with Securus. The contract charges the mostly poor inmates severely inflated phone rates and then the phone company pays 57 and a half percent, about $4 million a year, back to the county.

Preckwinkle says with a general funds deficit of $500 million going into 2011 the county decided to renew the deal.

Stopping the $15 calls would still leave most of the Securus contract intact and the county would continue to get most of its revenue, too.

Dorothy Brown tries to fend off Rick Munoz in bitter Cook County Circuit Court Clerk race

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 06:00:00 -0600

It's been a difficult few years for Dorothy Brown, the elected clerk of Cook County's circuit court. She's lost two bids for higher office, for mayor in 2007 and county board president in 2010.

Brown also faced a lot of criticism for poor bookkeeping of an employee "Jeans Day" program, for taking campaign money from her staff and office vendors and for accepting cash gifts from employees.

Now seeking a fourth term, Brown touts her record as an experienced administrator. First, she'll have to get past a feisty opponent, 22nd Ward Ald. Ricardo Munoz, in the March 20th Democratic primary.

Back in 2000, Brown won the court clerk's office by plowing through a Democratic field that included two Chicago aldermen. The machine-endorsed candidate was the 45th Ward's Pat Levar and the other was Joe Moore of the 49th Ward.

"I had previously announced my candidacy for that office and was getting a lot of support," Moore remembered. "But when she entered the race, it kind of sucked all the oxygen out my campaign."

Moore had television commercials, but Brown had an energized, independent organization of volunteers, and another advantage.

"What I failed to take into account is the large amount of favorable publicity that Ms. Brown received from news media. That free press was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars," said Moore, who is backing Munoz in this year's election.

That "favorable publicity" might be surprising now, after several years of ethics questions, but back in 2000 Brown won endorsements from the Tribune, Sun-Times and Daily Herald. They were impressed by her multiple professional degrees and her political independence.

Brown is now the Cook County Democratic Party's endorsed candidate and has had little trouble keeping the clerk's office. Four years ago she didn't even have a primary opponent. This year, though, she's up against Munoz, a 19-year veteran of the Chicago City Council. The two met for a debate last week in a Lincoln Park church. The setting didn't temper the mudslinging.

"You know what after 18 years [Munoz] doesn't even have a [ward] website for his constituents," Brown said.

"We can clean up the last corner of corruption in Cook County," Munoz told the crowd, referring to Brown's office.

"And then he just went on the floor and just voted for it blindly," Brown said, referring to Munoz's vote for the unpopular parking meter lease.

"The most eye-popping example is her failure to adopt an electronic document filing system that could save the taxpayers millions," Munoz said.

Munoz has tried to put electronic filing at the center of this election. He said it's long past time Cook County had a system for lawyers to file all legal briefs online. Some are filed electronically in a test program approved by the Illinois Supreme Court. But the court is not yet letting the county expand that program, and is not saying much publicly about why not.

Still, Brown defends how far the clerk's office has come since she took over.

"I had to actually move [the office] from the 19th Century...with handwriting, we didn't quite have quill pens, but we were close to that," Brown said at the debate.

Cook County, Brown continued, has one of the largest court systems in the country. Her office is responsible for handling the millions of documents that move in and out of hundreds of courtrooms.

How efficiently the office does that most certainly affects attorneys, who - at the Daley Center the other day - tended to give Brown a mixed grade.

"Great Job. There's a billion cases filed in this thing, and for the most part, things are where they're supposed to be, when they're supposed to be," Mark Mayer said. 'I don't know if she's wasting money or doing good with money...But as far as what I need to do...as far as my business, she does a great job."

"I notice sometimes that documents are mis-filed, which is only human considering the massive number of documents that they have," Ken Peters said.

The clerk's operation, of course, also impacts non-lawyers: people dealing with traffic tickets, divorces, criminal charges and foreclosures. And with about 2,000 employees and a $100 million budget, it affects anyone who pays taxes in the county.

Rick Munoz wants to take over the responsibility of the office after almost two decades on the City Council, where he was known as a rare voice of opposition to former Mayor Richard Daley. But Dorothy Brown disputes Munoz's reformer credentials, noting that he took money from developers in his Southwest Side ward and his vote on the parking meter lease. (Munoz has since sought to repeal the lease.)

Brown also questioned whether an alderman with only a handful of employees has enough management experience.

"You can throw out all kinds of accusations, but can you run an office of this magnitude? That's what's going to be important here," Brown said at the debate.

Munoz scoffed at that, citing the recent example of his key supporter, the county board president and former alderman Toni Preckwinkle. He's been dropping Preckwinkle's name all over the place, and also her photo - on campaign fliers Munoz passed out this week at the Loyola University 'L' stop.

"[I'm] just visiting all the way around - New Trier, Palatine, Wheeling, Hegewisch - just all over the county," Munoz said.

Has he found any commuters who cared about the circuit court clerk's office?

"Once they learn about the office, once they hear that I'm running against Dorothy Brown, the lady with the blue jeans scandal - they say, 'Oh, good. I'll support you," he said.

Munoz took a brief moment to find a response when he was asked if that's how he wants to win the race, by emphasizing Brown's negatives rather than his own positives.

"You know, I'm running to reform this office. Her negatives are just what they are," Munoz said.

In the city's Bronzeville neighborhood, Brown's campaign said it has well over a hundred volunteers. The campaign is running a seven-day-a-week phone bank, evidence that the clerk's political organization has some of the same heft it did twelve years ago.

And in an election in which most Chicago Democrats have, really, no big-name contested primaries to draw them to the polls, every little push may count.

ICE offer on ‘detainer’ costs draws mixed reaction

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 11:52:00 -0600

Cook County officials are voicing mixed reactions to an extraordinary U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement offer to cover the costs of holding some inmates beyond what their criminal cases require.

County Board Commissioner Jesús García (D-Chicago) said keeping people locked up after they’ve posted bond, served their sentence or had their charges dismissed would violate constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure. Accepting ICE’s offer, he added, would have “a significant chilling effect” on local policing.

“The county would be seen as an extension of ICE, operating within local government,” García said. “The immigrant community and all of the different groups that are affected by this would just shut down and cease to cooperate with law enforcement and with government in general.”

The reimbursement offer came in a Feb. 13 letter from ICE Director John Morton to County Board President Toni Preckwinkle. The letter also proposed that the county restore ICE’s ability to interview detainees inside the jail, provide ICE access to “any county records necessary” to identify deportable inmates, schedule inmate releases for business hours and provide 24 hours’ notice to ICE.

In September, an ordinance backed by Preckwinkle effectively ended the county’s compliance with ICE requests known as “detainers.” Those requests kept specified inmates in jail up to two business days longer than required by their criminal case’s judge. The ordinance barred the sheriff from honoring ICE detainers unless the feds agreed to pay for the extended confinement. County officials say that confinement costs about $142 a day per inmate.

Morton blasted the ordinance in a January letter, claiming it undermines public safety and hinders ICE’s ability to enforce immigration laws.

His offer to Cook County signals a possible change in ICE policy. The agency last year said it did not reimburse local jails for the cost of honoring its detainers.

Asked whether the offer could set a precedent for other jails, the agency sent a written statement that said Cook County reimbursements would be “unlikely” if ICE were “once again permitted to work inside” the jail and if the county provided the 24-hour notice. “ICE officers would immediately take custody of detainees on the same day of their scheduled release,” the statement said.

County Board Commissioner Peter Silvestri (R-Elmwood Park), who voted against the ordinance, said Morton’s offer focuses the debate on public safety and constitutional questions. “If the argument against complying with ICE detainers was that it’s a financial burden on the county, that argument has been resolved,” Silvestri said.

Preckwinkle’s office said Wednesday she was studying Morton’s proposals and couldn’t respond to them yet.

Preckwinkle has defended the ordinance and pointed out that citizens, not just suspected immigration violators, can cause trouble after getting out of jail. In January, she ordered a six-month study aimed at improving the bond system so inmates who threaten public safety remain in jail.

Another county official predicted that complying with the detainers again would give inmates reason to sue for false imprisonment. “When they get compensated by a jury, are the feds going to come across and pay that bill too?” asked Patrick Reardon, first assistant Cook County public defender.

The county paid $72,000 to settle two 2008 lawsuits over detainers involving five inmates, according to Patrick Driscoll Jr., a deputy Cook County state’s attorney.

García and Reardon said allowing ICE officials to interview jail inmates would violate a 2007 County Board resolution aimed at removing the county from immigration enforcement.

Morton’s proposals include creating a “joint working group,” consisting of county and ICE employees, to resolve detainer issues and schedule implementation of his plan. Morton pointed out his plan would require amending or repealing the September ordinance.

“Morton has [offered] the olive branch and said that he would like to have a working group established so that they can discuss any remaining issues beyond the cost,” Commissioner Tim Schneider (R-Bartlett) said. “We need to find out what these last issues are in order for ICE to be able to do its job and function effectively in Cook County.”

Silvestri and Schneider have each proposed an amendment to scale back the ordinance so it allows detainer compliance for inmates deemed most dangerous. The amendments were the subject of a heated County Board hearing Feb. 9.

At the hearing, Sheriff Tom Dart said the jail had released 346 inmates named on ICE detainers since the ordinance passed. He said 11 of those individuals ended up arrested again. The charges varied.

Dart also voiced support for Schneider’s proposal, which would require compliance with detainers for inmates who appeared on a federal terrorist list or who faced any of several serious felony charges.

Dart’s office Wednesday did not answer whether it supported Morton’s proposals but said it favors “anything that helps bring sanity to the current situation.”

Sheriff decries immigration detainer ordinance

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 11:00:00 -0600

Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart says he wants changes to an ordinance that frees some jail inmates wanted by immigration authorities. But the law’s supporters say they still have the votes to keep it intact.

The ordinance, approved last September, prohibits the sheriff from complying with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainers. Those are requests that the county hold specified inmates up to two business days longer than their criminal cases require. The detainers gave ICE extra time to pick up the inmates for possible deportation.

The ordinance has come under fire as news outlets have focused on a convicted felon who completed his probation before going to jail on charges of killing a man in a Northwest Side hit-and-run incident last year. ICE named the inmate on a detainer. After the ordinance passed, he posted bond, walked free and went missing.

On Thursday, a County Board committee held a four-hour hearing on proposals to honor the detainers for inmates who are potentially dangerous. At the hearing, Dart said the jail had released 346 inmates named on ICE detainers since the ordinance passed. He said 11 of those ended up arrested again on a variety of charges.

Dart also voiced support for one of those proposals, an amendment introduced last month by Timothy Schneider (R-Bartlett) that would require compliance with the detainers for inmates who appeared on a federal terrorist list or who faced various felony charges. Dart said Schneider’s proposal would target inmates who “have shown that they’re a danger.” Dart criticized another proposal, an amendment filed by Peter Silvestri (R-Elmwood Park) and John Daley (D-Chicago), that would give the sheriff discretion to honor detainers.

Commissioner Larry Suffredin (D-Evanston), who chairs the committee, told WBEZ he opposes both amendments and said neither has enough support to pass. But Suffredin, who voted for the ordinance, said he is open to “cleaning it up to give the sheriff clearer discretion” on whether to honor detainers. Suffredin said any committee votes on amending the ordinance would be next month.

County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, interviewed by WBEZ during the hearing, pointed out that many citizens get out of jail and cause trouble, too.

“People who are accused of very serious crimes are given bail every day because a judge makes a determination that they’re not a flight risk and they’re not a danger to our community,” she said. “So if you have a concern about people who are accused of serious crimes being released back into our community, it’s got to be broader concern than the two or three percent of them who are undocumented.”

Preckwinkle talked up a study that’s looking for ways to improve the bond system. The county’s five-member Judicial Advisory Council is carrying out the study and planning to make recommendations within six months.

The ordinance, sponsored by Commissioner Jesús García (D-Chicago), prohibits the jail from honoring the detainers unless the federal government agrees in advance to pay for the extended confinement — something ICE says it doesn’t do. The law’s supporters say the detainers eroded community trust in local police and violated inmates’ due-process rights. A federal court ruling in Indiana last summer called compliance with the detainers “voluntary.”

Commissioners take aim at immigration ordinance

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 13:38:00 -0600

A debate about a Cook County ordinance that frees some inmates wanted by immigration authorities could get hotter. At its meeting Wednesday, the County Board agreed to consider two proposed amendments that would scale back the ordinance. Commissioners with opposing views of the measure also vowed to press the county’s top law-enforcement officials to testify about it at an unscheduled hearing.

The ordinance effectively bars compliance with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainers, which are requests that the county’s jail hold specified inmates up to two business days after they post bond or complete their criminal cases.

One of the proposed amendments, introduced Wednesday by Timothy Schneider (R-Bartlett), seems to require compliance with the detainers for inmates listed on the federal Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment and for inmates charged with — though not necessarily convicted of — various felonies. Those felonies include certain drug offenses, crimes resulting in great bodily harm, and “forcible felonies,” which Illinois defines as involving the use or threat of physical force or violence against an individual.

“I know that my amendment will not pass,” Schneider told commissioners during their meeting. “But maybe with some input from some of the stakeholders, something will come out of this and we will pass a common-sense measure that creates greater justice for victims of crimes and also to improve public safety for the residents of Cook County.”

The other proposed amendment, filed by Peter Silvestri (R-Elmwood Park) and John Daley (D-Chicago), would give the sheriff leeway to honor the detainers.

“The sheriff should have greater discretion on holding people that pose a threat to society,” Silvestri said before the meeting. “The sheriff, as the chief law enforcement officer of the county, should develop a procedure for determining which individuals to keep and which to release.”

That idea is not going over well with the ordinance’s author, Jesús García (D-Chicago). “It would bring back a flawed program that has not succeeded in apprehending dangerous criminals, and has instead resulted in the detention and sometimes deportation of people with minor infractions, victims of crime, and even U.S. citizens,” a statement from García’s office said. “It would give the sheriff unbridled discretion to comply with ICE detainers.”

Commissioners voted Wednesday afternoon to send both proposals to the board’s Legislation and Intergovernmental Relations Committee, chaired by Larry Suffredin (D-Evanston), who supports the ordinance.

Sheriff Tom Dart’s office did not return a call about the proposals, but he has quietly urged commissioners to require compliance with ICE detainers for inmates who meet any of several criteria. Dart listed some of the criteria in a December letter to Silvestri: “[It] is my hope that you agree that those charged with a ‘forcible felony,’ those who have a history of convictions and those on a Homeland Security Terrorist Watch List should be held on an ICE detainer rather than released immediately.”

State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez’s office did not return a call about the proposals.

The ordinance, approved in a 10-5 vote last September, has received increasing public attention in recent weeks as news outlets have focused on a convicted felon who was charged and jailed in a fatal Logan Square hit-and-run incident last year and named on an ICE detainer. After the ordinance passed, officials say, the inmate posted bond, walked free and went missing.

A letter this month from ICE Director John Morton to County Board President Toni Preckwinkle cites that case. “This ordinance undermines public safety in Cook County and hinders ICE’s ability to enforce the nation’s immigration laws,” the letter says.

Last week Preckwinkle said the hit-and-run suspect’s release “outraged” her, but she has stuck behind the ordinance. Instead of reconsidering it, she proposed a study of the county’s bail bond system for all criminal cases — no matter whether the inmate’s name appears on an ICE detainer. On Wednesday, the board approved the proposal, under which the county’s Judicial Advisory Council will undertake the study. That five-member panel, chaired by Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke, would recommend ways to improve pretrial services so judges can make better-informed decisions on bond amounts, according to the proposal.

ICE took custody of 1,665 Cook County inmates in 2010 and 721 in 2011, according to Dart’s office. Morton’s letter says ICE has lodged detainers against another 268 county inmates since the ordinance’s approval but the sheriff’s office has disregarded them.

The ordinance prohibits the jail from honoring the detainers unless the federal government agrees in advance to pay for the extended confinement — something ICE says it doesn’t do. García and others who back the ordinance say the detainers violated inmates’ due-process rights and eroded community trust in local police. A federal court ruling in Indiana last summer called compliance with the detainers “voluntary.”

The ordinance has reverberated beyond Cook County. In October, California’s Santa Clara County adopted a similar measure.