WBEZ | Cook County Jail

Cook County inmates compete with Russian inmates in online chess match

Wed, 15 May 2013 16:32:00 -0500

Inside the Cook County Jail law library, 10 men were hunched over laptops playing online chess. A live video of their competitors, all Russian inmates, was projected on the wall.

Correctional Officer Patrice Faulkner roamed the room, encouraging players to take their time. “I’m nervous, because this is a big deal,” she said.

The program is run by Mikhail Korenman, who met chess legend Anatoly Karpov last year. The two chess players, along with Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, hatched the idea for this tournament, which, according to Dart, is the first of its kind.

It was a hard match. The U.S. team was entirely from Cook County, while Russia chose players from across the country’s prison system.

Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said he had no delusions the match would solve current diplomatic issues between the U.S. and Russia. But he thought chess was a good activity for the men because it encouraged thinking ahead five or six moves, because you must consider the future impact of every action.

Warren Jackson, one of today’s players, said he had seen that change in himself, “I’m more proactive than reactive now. So I do think chess plays a heavy game when it comes down to you making decisions.”

In the end, Russia won. But Dalvin Brown, Chicago’s star player, won both his games. Karpov complimented his skills and the Russians said they will be sending him a chessboard.

Shannon Heffernan is a WBEZ reporter. Follow her @shannon_h.

In Cook County courts: Not guilty? Go to jail anyway

Mon, 06 May 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Cook County has a pretty curious way of dealing with people who are acquitted in court, people who are found not guilty. The county has a practice of violating their constitutional rights, and the practice goes back decades. That's what happened to a man named Calvin Marshall. You can hear what Marshall went through after he was found not guilty of murder by clicking on the audio above.

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.

Dart: ‘We’re criminalizing mental health’

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 23:06:00 -0500

Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart says mentally ill jail inmates are overwhelming his staff. For now, though, he’s not backing calls for Chicago to reopen six mental-health clinics it closed this spring.

At a Logan Square forum about the clinics Wednesday night, Dart said too many people with mental illnesses lacked professional care. “When we don’t fund services properly, they end up in my jail,” he said.

“What we are, in fact, doing is criminalizing mental health,” Dart said. “That’s what we’re doing.”

The audience, packed into a church near one of the shuttered clinics, burst into applause.

The forum’s organizers handed out a press release that said Dart supported their calls for Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration to reopen and fully staff the clinics.

Later, however, Dart told WBEZ he wasn’t making any demands.

“What I want is a thorough plan that we’re going to be advocating for,” Dart said. “Could it involve more clinics? Could be. Could it involve more state money being funded for specific services? Could be. Literally nothing is off the table.”

Dart said his office would come up with that plan by year’s end.

NATO terrorism defendants kept in ‘observation’ cells

Tue, 22 May 2012 15:47:00 -0500

A spokesman for Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart says three anti-NATO protesters accused of planning terrorist actions have been held around-the-clock since Saturday in white-walled “observation” cells, where they are isolated from each other and the rest of the inmate population and kept from writing materials, books and all other media.

“It’s for their own safety and the safety of the [jail] staff and other inmates,” the spokesman, Frank Bilecki, said Tuesday afternoon. “Obviously we’re concerned about their mental status and well-being.”

A medical staff member checks on the three every 15 minutes, Bilecki said. The cells each have one window through which natural light passes and a larger window for the observation, he added.

Gary Hickerson, acting executive director of the office’s Department of Corrections, ordered the observation because the defendants are young and because their charges are serious, Bilecki said. The decision had nothing to do with defendants’ behavior since arrest, he added.

The sheriff’s spokesman says the State’s Attorney’s office had no input into the protesters’ jail conditions.

But a lawyer for one of the alleged terrorists says the conditions amount to “sensory deprivation” intended to hamper their defense. “This is a way to break someone’s spirit and break their ability to cooperate with their attorneys,” said the lawyer, Michael Deutsch, who represents Brian Church, 20, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Deutsch complained about the conditions in a court hearing about the case Tuesday afternoon. Defense attorneys said they were “negotiating” with jail staff members to improve the conditions.

Those talks may be paying off. Bilecki said the jail was planning to move the three protesters Tuesday evening into the general inmate population.

Church and the other protesters — Jared Chase, 27, of Keene, N.H; and Brent Betterly, 24, of Oakland Park, Fla. — face charges of terrorism conspiracy, providing material support for terrorism, and possession of explosives or incendiary devices. Cook County Judge Edward S. Harmening on Saturday set their bonds at $1.5 million each.

Authorities accused the trio of possessing Molotov cocktails and planning or proposing attacks on targets including President Barack Obama’s campaign headquarters and Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s home. The three were among nine people arrested during a police raid last Wednesday at the South Side apartment of some Occupy Chicago leaders who helped organize protests against the NATO summit.

Church, Chase and Betterly appeared at Tuesday’s hearing in tan jail uniforms but did not speak. Judge Adam D. Bourgeois Jr. granted a request by prosecutors to continue the case until June 12.

At least two other anti-NATO protesters arrested last week face serious felony charges. Sebastian Senakiewicz, 24, of Chicago is charged with falsely making a terrorist threat. Mark Neiweem, 28, of Chicago is charged with solicitation for explosives or incendiary devices. A judge on Sunday set their bonds at $750,000 and $500,000, respectively.

Senakiewicz and Neiweem are scheduled for a status hearing Wednesday.

ICE detainers a public-safety issue?

Wed, 16 May 2012 11:12:00 -0500

More than eight months since it passed, an ordinance that ended Cook County Jail compliance with immigration detainers keeps causing sparks. The detainers — requests that the jail hold inmates up to two business days beyond what their criminal cases require — help federal officials put the inmates into deportation proceedings. Sheriff Tom Dart and some county commissioners are pressing for the ordinance to be scaled back. So is President Barack Obama’s administration. They all say their motive is to keep dangerous criminals locked up. Yet officials offer no evidence whether inmates freed by the ordinance endanger the public more than other former inmates do. A WBEZ investigation sheds the first light.

The ordinance cut ties between the jail and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency known as ICE. It passed last September. County Commissioner Tim Schneider offered a prediction.

SCHNEIDER: Under this ordinance, gang bangers, people involved in drug dealing, sex trafficking and criminal sexual assault will be released back into our communities that with these ICE detainers would be held and would be deported. This is clearly our Willie Horton moment here in Cook County.

Horton was a Massachusetts felon let out of prison on a weekend furlough in 1986. He did not come back and committed violent crimes that haunted Governor Michael Dukakis in his presidential campaign. Cook County may not have anyone like Horton on its hands. But within four months of the ordinance’s approval, news outlets had seized on someone else.

TV REPORTER: . . . when it was revealed that this man, Saúl Chávez, an alleged hit-and-run driver, had bonded out . . .

Saúl Chávez — that’s the pronunciation — was an undocumented immigrant from Mexico. ICE slapped a detainer on him but the ordinance required the jail to disregard it. When he posted bond, the jail let him out. Then Chávez missed his court dates and disappeared.

DART: . . . Thank you very much, Commissioner. Thank you for having me here. . . .

At a February hearing, Sheriff Tom Dart told county commissioners about other inmates he’d freed.

DART: Since September 7, the jail has released 346 individuals — who had detainers on them — that prior to September 7 would have been detained on the hold.

Dart said 11 of those 346 had committed new offenses. ICE, meanwhile, pointed to the Chávez case and, like Dart, claimed the ordinance undermined public safety in the county. Last month U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano testified at a Senate hearing.

NAPOLITANO: Cook County’s ordinance is terribly misguided and is a public-safety issue. We’re evaluating a lot of options . . .

All this talk about public safety had me scratching my head. Just how dangerous are these people? Are they more dangerous than former jail inmates that ICE has not named on detainers? I looked for studies comparing the two groups. I checked with policy experts and criminologists . . . the sheriff’s office, the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, ICE, the U.S. Department of Justice . . .

BECK: I’m not aware that any research has been conducted on this.

This is Allen Beck. He’s a top DOJ statistician. I show him the figures Sheriff Dart brought to that hearing. Some simple math shows that about 3 percent of the inmates the jail freed in disregard of immigration detainers had committed new offenses.^[1]

BECK: That’s correct.

The sheriff’s office told me it couldn’t come up with the rearrest rate for all the other inmates the jail released during those five months.^[2] The office did provide numbers for Cook County defendants on electronic monitoring.^[3] And I checked into a Loyola University study about felons discharged from Illinois probation.^[4] The rearrest rate for both groups is about the same as for the detainer group.

BECK: Right.

Beck tells me about something else.

BECK: You know, we have tracked felony defendants in large state courts for some time. We have statistics related to Cook County. We certainly have been able to determine a substantial failure rate.

Beck shows me what he means by failure. In the DOJ’s most recent look at Cook County felony defendants, about 25 percent of those who got out of jail with charges pending committed new crimes before their case was over.^[5]

MITCHELL: Mr. Beck, given the evidence available, what can we say about the former inmates wanted by ICE?

BECK: Well, there clearly isn’t any data here to suggest that this group had a higher rate of failure — that is, of a re-arrest — than other groups that the Cook County sheriff may be dealing with. In fact, I think the evidence would suggest that these rates are lower.

But here’s another question about Cook County’s policy of disregarding immigration detainers: Are the inmates who bond out more likely to skip their court dates and go missing, like Saúl Chávez did? In the county’s court records, you can see a defendant has failed to appear when the judge revokes bail and orders arrest. The arrest order’s known as a bond-forfeiture warrant.

MITCHELL: So, Mr. Beck, of the inmates our jail released despite immigration detainers, we pulled court records on all but one of those who were charged with a felony and who got out by posting bond.^[6]

BECK: . . . couldn’t find one.

MITCHELL: Right.

BECK: Right.

MITCHELL: And of those, about 12 percent were named on bond-forfeiture warrants during the five months.

BECK: About 12 percent.

For perspective, I rounded up some WBEZ volunteers to help check this figure against other felony defendants freed on bond over the five months. We came up with a representative sample.^[7] Judges ordered bond-forfeiture warrants for about 14 percent of our sample during the period. Then I got some figures from the sheriff and the court clerk.^[8] They show roughly how many bond-forfeiture warrants named any felony defendant who got out on bail during those five months.

BECK: So basically what you’re saying is that about 15 percent — what is that, one in six?

MITCHELL: Yeah, very close to the rate of the inmates released in disregard of ICE detainers. Mr. Beck, your study — the one by the U.S. Department of Justice — also includes figures for how many Cook County felony defendants failed to appear in court.^[9]

BECK: We found 21 percent.

MITCHELL: Now, Mr. Beck, whether we’re looking at the rearrests or the bail jumping, all our comparisons include some apples-to-oranges issues.

BECK: That’s right but we’re looking at numbers that certainly do not lead to a conclusion that this group released in disregard to the ICE detainers would pose a greater risk upon their release than others.

If that’s the case, I wondered what all those officials meant when they said the Cook County ordinance undermines public safety. Sheriff Dart’s office and the Department of Homeland Security haven’t granted my requests to speak with them about this. An ICE spokeswoman says her agency won’t talk about this on tape and says ICE never claimed that the former jail inmates it named on detainers were committing more crimes or jumping bail more than other former jail inmates. The lack of evidence did not stop the officials from pressing for the ordinance to be scaled back. Tim Schneider — he’s the County Board commissioner who invoked Willie Horton — he proposed an amendment that would require compliance with the ICE detainers for inmates who appear on a federal terrorist list or face a serious felony charge. I ask Schneider whether his push has anything to do with age-old fears about immigrants threatening public safety.

MITCHELL: When you talk about Willie Horton in the context of the September ordinance and when you talk about Saúl Chávez — our research suggested he’s not typical — are you stoking those fears?

SCHNEIDER: Absolutely not.

He goes on.

SCHNEIDER: If these people could be held pursuant to ICE detainers, then that’s one less person that would flee justice. In the case of Saúl Chávez, he is out loose because we’re not complying with ICE detainers.

YOUNG: No one wants to be seen as endangering public safety.

Attorney Malcolm Young directs an inmate-reentry program at Northwestern University.

YOUNG: The claim of public safety is a good one to make any time you want to advance one or another criminal-justice policy. Here I think it’s incumbent on someone who’s making that argument to show why it is that the release of someone who is the subject of an ICE detainer puts the community at risk or creates a risk that that person is not going to show up in court.

Otherwise, Young says, the Cook County Jail may as well keep all inmates beyond what their criminal cases require — not just those wanted by immigration authorities.

Notes

1. Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart told county commissioners at a February 9 hearing that his office had freed 346 inmates in disregard of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainers since September 7, when the County Board enacted “Policy for responding to ICE detainers” (Ordinance 11-O-73). Of the 346, according to Dart, 11 committed new offenses during the five months. That means 3.2 percent had reoffended. The flow of the releases over the five months was steady, so the individuals averaged about 75 days (half of the five months) in which they could have been arrested on new charges. That makes the per-day rearrest rate roughly 0.04 percent.

2. The sheriff’s office says the jail released 30,549 inmates between September 7 and February 6. But the office says it could not quickly find out how many had committed new offenses during that period because that tally would require investigating the cases one-by-one.

3. The sheriff’s office says Cook County Circuit Court judges ordered 2,700 individuals into the sheriff’s electronic-monitoring program between September 7 and February 6. Of those, according to the sheriff’s office, 53 were arrested for a new crime while in the program during that period. That means about 2.0 percent had committed a new crime — close to the 3.2 percent for the inmates released in disregard of ICE detainers. Among shortcomings with this comparison is that the electronic-monitoring group did not include individuals released from jail after a not-guilty ruling, individuals who had served their sentences, individuals for whom all charges were dismissed and so on.

4. Loyola University Chicago researchers studied 1,578 felons discharged in November 2000 from Illinois probation. Within two months of their discharge, 3 percent had been rearrested for a new crime, according David Olson, an author of the study. That’s about 0.05 percent per day — close to the 0.04 percent rate for the inmates released in disregard of ICE detainers. Shortcomings with this comparison include penal and policing changes since the probation discharges, the presence of 740 non-Cook County individuals in the probation group, and that group’s lack of misdemeanants, pretrial defendants, individuals whose charges were dropped, individuals found not guilty, individuals who completed sentences other than probation and so on.

5. The most recent U.S. Department of Justice study that covers rearrests of former Cook County Jail inmates looks at 716 defendants who were charged in May 2006 with a felony and freed from the jail before trial. About 25 percent were rearrested again in Illinois on a new charge before their case’s disposition. Assuming the median time between their first arrest and their adjudication was 92 days, the per-day rearrest rate was roughly 0.27 percent — much higher than the 0.04 percent rate for the inmates released in disregard of ICE detainers. A shortcoming with this comparison is the DOJ study’s lack of misdemeanants and of individuals released because their sentence was served or their charges were dropped. Another shortcoming is that the median time, 92 days, refers to all counties in the DOJ study. The figure for Cook County alone was not available.

6. The sheriff’s office provided a listing of individuals the jail released between September 7 and February 6 in disregard of ICE detainers. WBEZ focused on flight risk by examining a subset — the 133 felony defendants who got out of jail by posting bond. Court records on one of those defendants could not be found, reducing the number to 132. Judges named 16 of the 132, or 12.1 percent, on bond-forfeiture warrants (BFWs) during that five-month period, according to a WBEZ review of the records. The flow of the releases over the period was steady, so the individuals averaged about 75 days (half of the five months) in which they could have been named on a BFW. That makes the per-day rate roughly 0.16 percent. But there’s a caveat: It’s possible that some of the 16 defendants who failed to appear in court were missing because ICE had detained or deported them. A January 4 letter from ICE Director John Morton says his agency had arrested 15 individuals that the jail had released since September 7 in disregard of ICE detainers. We asked ICE to identify the 15 but the agency pointed to a privacy policy and declined. We also asked ICE whether it notifies the Cook County Circuit Court after taking into custody someone with a pending criminal case in that court, whose judges order the BFWs. ICE didn’t answer that question but said it informs local law-enforcement agencies and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office.

7. WBEZ generated a 133-member sample of felony defendants freed on bond between September 7 and February 6. Of those, 18, or 13.5 percent, were named on a BFW during that period, according to a WBEZ review of their court records. That rate is close to the 12.1 percent for inmates released in disregard of ICE detainers. A shortcoming of this comparison concerns the degree to which the sample is representative. Randomness was impossible due to limits on public access to records kept by the sheriff and the Clerk of the Circuit Court and due to a lack of data integration between the two offices. An example of the shortcoming is that WBEZ had to identify the felony cases by finding clerk-assigned case numbers with digits showing the case’s transfer to the court system’s criminal division, which handles felonies only. But some felony cases never reach that division and, thus, are never assigned a case number with those digits.

8. Figures from the sheriff’s office suggest that roughly 8,000 felony defendants got out of jail between September 7 and February 6 by posting bond. Figures from the clerk’s office suggest that judges ordered 1,247 BFWs in felony cases during that period. The BFWs cover roughly 15.6 percent of the defendants, assuming just one BFW per defendant. The rate is higher than the 12.1 percent for inmates released in disregard of ICE detainers. A shortcoming with this comparison is that the “roughly 8,000” figure refers to a 7,785-9,089 range provided by the sheriff’s office, which says it can’t quickly determine the felony/misdemeanor status of 1,304 cases. Another shortcoming is that the clerk’s office does not track when defendants were released from jail. The 1,247 figure, therefore, pertains to the five-month period but not the 8,000 defendants per se.

9. In the DOJ study, judges named 21 percent of the defendants on a warrant for failure to appear in court. Given the median 92 days from arrest to adjudication, 0.23 percent per day got such a warrant. That rate is higher than the 0.16 percent for inmates released in disregard of ICE detainers. A shortcoming with this comparison is that the detainer group includes just those who posted bond. The DOJ group includes additional pretrial-defendant types, such as those released on personal recognizance. Another shortcoming is that the median time, 92 days, refers to all counties in the DOJ study. The figure for Cook County alone was not available.

Research assistance from Brian Mitchell, Christopher Newman, Joan Rothenberg and Sauming Seto. Editing by Shawn Allee.

Cook County to pay for repeated jail lockdowns

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 10:41:28 -0500

Cook County has agreed to pay more than $1 million to settle a federal lawsuit filed by female jail inmates who claimed their rights were violated when the institution was repeatedly locked down.

The four inmates alleged the extended weekend lockdowns in 2003 and earlier occurred while guards conducted security checks. The inmates alleged the guards failed to respond promptly to requests for help during the lockdowns, shirking the jail's duty "to protect inmates from harm from other inmates.

Officials say they've stopped the non-emergency lockdowns

Two inmates won judgments in federal court totaling $153,000, while the county agreed to pay two others $5,000 each to put an end to the lawsuit. The county will pay attorneys for the plaintiffs $850,000 to cover fees and costs incurred over nine years.

Prison officials restrict visitation to curb flu

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 14:31:00 -0500

Cook County officials are limiting visits for some prisoners because of a spreading illness among inmates.

Sheriff Thomas J. Dart's office said Saturday that the Cook County Department of Corrections and Cermak Hospital were taking measures to contain what appeared to be the flu or an influenza-like sickness.

Officials did not give further details.

The sheriff's office says all detainees in Division 1 at the Cook County Department of Corrections are in a so-called no-movement status and will not be allowed visitors. Similar rules apply to detainees in other divisions as well.

Authorities suggest calling the sheriff's office before trying to visit.

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.

Cook County may expand law that tickets low level marijuana offenders

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 12:06:00 -0500

Cook County commissioners are scheduled to vote Wednesday to expand a law that targets low-level marijuana offenders. But the sheriff's office says even if the new measure is passed, it might not be enforced.

Getting caught with 10 grams or less of marijuana in unincorporated Cook County technically means a $200 dollar ticket. If an ordinance passes today, that rule would extend to municipalities that don't have their own police force. Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle said more ticketing for pot possession means fewer arrests of non-violent offenders.

"We're clogging up our criminal justice system with low-level possession arrests for marijuana and it doesn't make sense to treat low level possession in this way," she said. "If we're worried about addiction we oughta be focused on treatment and not incarceration."

But Steve Patterson, a spokesman for the Cook County Sheriff's office, said that's unlikely.

"We have very few people in here on possession with a small amount of marijuana," Patterson said. "Without an underlying or additional charge, they probably wouldn't have come into the jail into the first place."

Patterson said the new ordinance won't cover many areas and he said different rules for different parts of the county make work difficult for officers.