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4 independent monitors to be hired for Cook County JailThursday, May 13, 2010
Chicago Tribune
by Tribune Staff Report
Four outside monitors are to be
hired to make regular inspections of Cook County Jail and report back to
a judge under an agreement announced today stemming from a federal
probe of conditions at the jail.
The agreement also calls for the
hiring of more than 600 additional correctional officers over the next
year -- something the Cook County board already agreed to do in March to
settle the federal probe.
In addition, it calls for stepped-up
inspections for contraband and more video surveillance of inmate housing
areas.
Compliance will be overseen by
four "mutually selected, independent
monitors. . . who will exercise broad duties, respectively, over
corrections, medical care, mental health care, and the physical plant,"
the office added.
The monitors must issue status reports to the federal court every six
months.
The agreement stems a 2008 Justice
Department report that concluded a culture existed at Cook County Jail
that led to systematic inmate beatings and medical care was so poor that
some inmates had died.
The investigation found that three jail
inmates committed suicide in
the first four months of that year alone. The investigation also
identified preventable inmate deaths and a preventable amputation due
to inadequate medical care.
In addition, it detailed
"incidents of unchecked inmate violence in 2006 that resulted in two
inmate deaths," the U.S. attorney's office said.
The
investigation concluded that inmates were
"regularly subjected to inappropriate and excessive use of physical
force by jail staff, even when inmates posed no threat to anyone's
safety or to the jail's security."
Even before the report,
however, County Board President Todd Stroger's administration -- along
with Sheriff Tom Dart's top brass and Health and Hospitals System
officials -- had begun to work with federal authorities to come up with a
plan to address the jail's longstanding problems.
The agreement
also carefully delineates other measures aimed at improving conditions.
For example, it requires that photographs or video be taken of all
injuries allegedly caused by use of force.
Under the agreement,
the Cook County Department of Corrections must hire, train and place on
duty at least 448 new corrections officers by Dec. 31,and an additional
174 corrections officers by March 30, 2011.
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