Cook County considers overhaul of electronic balloon monitoring program as criticism escalates

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COOK COUNTY Changes could be made to Cook County’s controversial home watch programs designed to categorize defendants who have been released from prison.

The county hired a consortium of consultants and advocacy groups to assess the effectiveness of the two separate pre-trial monitoring programs, county board chairman Toni Preckwinklet told reporters last week. . The external inquiry is working to make a series of recommendations for reform, including the transfer of one or both programs to the state, officials said.

Preckwinkles chief of staff Lanetta Haynes Turners said the county justice advisory board had convened a panel of subject matter experts, including public sector consultancy CGL and the Appleseed Center for Fair Courts, who made preliminary recommendations that are currently under review by various county offices. .

The County Justice Advisory Board launched the review last year.

We should find out more over the next six months or so, how we’ll realign the two county-level electronic monitoring programs to deliver more effective results, Turner said.

His comments came a day after the Appleseed Center joined the Chicago Council of Lawyers in denouncing the electronic surveillance program run by Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, saying it has become too punitive and too heavy-handed.

The 18-page group report released this week, titled 10 Facts About Pre-Trial Surveillance in Cook County, denounces the home surveillance program, accusing, among other things, of perpetuating racial disparities, destabilizing communities and failing to present no real benefit to the public.

Sarah Staudt, senior policy analyst at the Appleseed Center and lead author of the report, told the Daily Lineon on Friday that the rights organization has decided to release the results to give people a first look at what’s going on with it . [electronic monitoring] program while the internal review takes place behind the scenes.

Electronic surveillance is an area of ​​personal interest to us because communities tell us it is an unnecessarily oppressive and excessive program, Staudt said. Were putting large sums of money into a growing program that doesn’t seem to have a high level of effectiveness, and that’s something we should be thinking about as a county.

Organizations counted 3,051 defendants who were on or on the sheriff’s electronic monitoring program last week, about 26% more than what was contained under the program just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States. last year.

The Office of Cook County Chief Justice Timothy Evans operates a separate home containment unit as part of its pre-trial services division, but no public information is available on how many people the program has The pre-trial services division’s electronic monitoring station monitors how much their movements are restricted, what they are billed with, how placement is decided, or any other basic information, according to the report.

This complete lack of transparency makes any detailed analysis of this program impossible, the report continues.

A spokesperson for Evans’s office declined to comment on the post, saying office officials have just received the report and are reviewing it.

Due to the growing number of defendants under electronic surveillance, Cook County can no longer accurately state that its pre-trial incarcerated population is declining, according to the Appleseed Center report. This reversal of a long trend towards decarceration should concern everyone in the county.

The authors of the report added that defendants under electronic surveillance are being held longer than ever, with 1,150 having been in the system for more than a year, a 32% increase from last year. They called on leaders of the county court system to immediately begin electronic surveillance status of every person every 90 days, getting ahead of a state requirement that is due to go into effect in January.

They noted that nearly three-quarters of the population under electronic surveillance is black, saying the program therefore perpetuates racial disparities.

A spokesperson for Darts’ office wrote in a statement that the report reflected many of the complaints the sheriff’s office had received for years about how the program is being used.

Dart has long complained publicly that the electronic surveillance program has gotten out of hand. In 2019, he wrote a letter to Evans asking the Office of the Chief Justices to absorb into its pre-service division the more than 2,000 defendants who are under electronic surveillance under Darts supervision. Evans bristled at the idea, saying it would face too many logistical hurdles.

Related: Evans Finds Problems in Darts Call to Merge Electronic Surveillance Divisions

The population on [electronic monitoring] has grown significantly and it’s not a solution to the very real public safety and criminal justice issues we face in Chicago, Sheriff’s Office spokesman Matthew Walberg wrote in a statement Thursday. He also noted that judges and not the sheriff’s office determine who is assigned to electronic surveillance and for how long.

The judicial authorities are now open to the consolidation of at least one of the two home confinement programs by entrusting them to a public body. Turner said Thursday that the Illinois Supreme Court is strongly considering removing the division of pre-trial services from local courts and implementing a statewide program.

There is a question as to whether or not electronic monitoring would be built into this process, Turner said.

Dart has repeatedly said he believes judges are assigning too many defendants to electronic surveillance. He argued during a 2019 budget hearing that those released under home supervision do not have access to the types of rehabilitation programs available to inmates at the prison.

Related: Dart Shakes Sheriff’s Office To Focus On Electronic Surveillance

It was fiercely picked up this summer by Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department. David Brown, who has repeatedly claimed without evidence that those released under electronic surveillance are a driving force behind the outbreak of gun violence in the city this year.

Related: Aldermen leap as Brown and Lightfoot support false narrative linking courts to shootings

The truth is, more than 75% of those under electronic surveillance face violence charges, including 96 accused of murder, 131 accused of sexual assault and 254 accused of regular armed criminal, Walberg wrote in his statement. The sheriff’s office is doing its best to operate a [electronic monitoring] A program that enforces court orders aimed at preventing new crimes and ensuring that defendants do not flee their criminal charges, while not being unduly restrictive.

In their report, lawyers for the Appleseed Center and the Chicago Council of Lawyers agree that too many defendants are being kept in the home watch program. But they offer a different solution: to free them.

Their report says pre-trial home surveillance is overused, with 43% housebound for illegal possession of firearms that does not involve shooting, brandishing or even touching or holding a gun. .

Possession of unlicensed firearms is a criminal offense in most states, or no license is required at all, the report says. In Illinois, it is a felony that carries a mandatory minimum jail sentence.

They also called the program flawed and punitive, claiming that 546 people so far in 2021 have been returned to custody due to technical violations such as removing their ankle cuffs to escape the program. That number is more than four times more than in 2019, when 123 people were returned to prison for breaking electronic surveillance rules.

Yet between 2016 and 2020, more than 91% of those under electronic surveillance were not re-arrested while under restrictions.

These are people who have not been convicted of a crime, just charged with a crime, and it is not acceptable that we try to restrict their freedom by thinking that we are providing them better services in a context prisoner. , said Staudt. We know that what helps people be successful are things that promote self-efficacy, like getting an education, having a job, or taking care of your family.

Because electronic surveillance is so restrictive, it disrupts people’s abilities to do these things, she added.

Walberg’s statement countered that allegations in that report that sheriffs [electronic monitoring] program is consistently excessively and unnecessarily punitive are simply baseless.

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