A Cook County commissioner says the board shares responsibility for the failures that led to jail breaks at the Cook County Jail last weekend.
Commissioner Mike Quigley says the problem is that commissioners don’t want to be seen as soft on crime, and so they just don’t challenge the sheriff’s word.
He says that has to change.
“Just because you’re spending money on law enforcement doesn’t mean it’s being spent well,” Quigley says. “Just because the person with the badge tells you he needs something doesn’t mean it’s right. On a national scope, it’s kind of the parallel to the military. You don’t want to challenge what the military gets. Well, how do you know they’re not spending it poorly?”
Quigley says the public didn’t care about mismanagement at the jail when scandals involved the abuse of inmates.
But he hopes that will change now that inmates are escaping.
Quigley’s calling for the Chicago police or an independent agency to investigate the jail breaks.
Currently, the sheriff’s department is responsible for reviewing such failures within its ranks.