Jail Population Down, But the Mentally Ill, Illegal Guns and Other Challenges for Sheriff

2016 Cook County Proposed Budget:  Sheriff, November 2, 2015

In his opening remarks, Sheriff Dart announced the closing of 3 divisions (the oldest ones) of the Cook County Jail since the population is down. He wanted to make it very clear that he had an understanding with President Preckwinkle, however, that if the jail population should spike again, money would be set aside to rebuild a division. Currently, the jail population is around 8,000, down from over 10,000 just a few years ago. Electronic monitoring, in lieu of detention, accounts for about 2,000 at present. He does not want to get into a situation in which overcrowding is a problem.  However, he pointed out that his mental health division is always overcrowded. He also talked about the high numbers of illegal guns his officers have confiscated in the southern suburbs.

   

Many commissioners asked about the cost savings of closing 3 divisions. The sheriff made the point that the cost savings for the closings cannot be measured “dollar for dollar”.  For example, when he closes these divisions, the employees who used to staff them, along with the personnel costs, are not let go.  Instead, he utilizes those employees within the other buildings in order to bring down the high costs of overtime.  While the jail population is down, he has more people to attend to who are on Electronic Monitoring. He also is spending more on health care professionals in his mental health unit and special treatment center. He is also training several police forces in the southern suburbs and sending more officers to those areas throughout the county that need help.

Commissioner Boykin called the sheriff the “best sheriff in all of the USA" and commended him for doing a difficult job quite well. Most of the commissioners had a great deal of praise for the job Sheriff Dart was doing. When asked about mental health, the sheriff spoke at length about his new Mental Health Treatment Setting in the area that was once the boot camp. He also said that the heroin epidemic was tied to some extent to the issue of mental health in that some detainees use heroin instead of prescription drugs to ease their difficulties.

Commissioner Garcia asked about the role of the new Gun Violence Coordinator that was just approved by the Board. Sheriff Dart explained the work he and the sheriffs from several counties in NW Indiana are doing in order to work together to stop the sale of illegal guns. This coordinator could help with that. In addition he praised the Lyons government and the gun shop in Lyons which negotiated on a new ordinance that, among other things, institutes a requirement for the gun shop to have a “Do Not Sell List” for people who are known to be purchasing guns for others (“straw buyers”). This store will also notify the police if a person is turned down for a sale. The coordinator could help this become the model for other towns. (Three gun stores were recently sued for perpetuating gun violence. The Lyons Gun Store settled out of court with these new rules).

Commissioner Murphy asked if the old Boot Camp program was completely gone. The sheriff explained that he stopped the old program because the results did not warrant the cost and did not assist the men in the program in getting a job. The new program is training detainees in carpentry, plumbing, and other trades by tearing down and refreshing abandoned buildings throughout the county.  He is sure that the new program will have better results. She also asked about using the RICO statute to go after gang leaders. He thought that RICO was a very complicated statute and is tough to use in prosecution. He also noted that the “War on Drugs” has failed.

Commissioner Suffredin appreciated that closing 3 buildings would not bring the massive savings that everyone wanted. He did want to know where most of the increase in costs proposed in the budget were being applied. The sheriff said that mostly the costs went to COLA’S and step increases for employees.  He also said that his IT budget was higher than before. There was some talk later on among Commissioners Daley, Gainer and the sheriff about pulling back some automatic raises for non-union employees in departments under the elected officials that are due to take effect December 1 in order that the elected official could reallocate the money to reflect job performance. Daley said that this idea could be considered at the Nov. 18 Board Meeting (the last one before Dec. 1).   

No one at this hearing discussed STAR goals or targets, but the budget book mentioned several. Some of the overall goals for the Sheriff’s Office include compliance with the Shakman decision in hiring, reviewing revenues to bring down costs, and having more transparency for his programs. For the sheriff's police some STAR goals include improving the Child Protection Response unit and more illegal gun recovery. And for the jail some STAR goals include enrolling more detainees in mental health programs and improving the discharge procedures so that detainees know where they can get mental health help, housing and job information.

Submitted by Jan Goldberg, League Observer

Hearing on Opiate Addiction and Usage, Legislative Committee of the Cook County Board, April 29, 2015

The Legislative Committee held hearings on Opiate Addiction and Usage on April 29, 2015 at 2:25 pm.    A complete video of the testimony by various experts may be viewed below.

http://cook-county.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=3&clip_id=1134

Commissioners Gorman and Suffredin called the hearings to try to understand opiate addiction to be able to address cost and treatment issues for the Criminal Justice System and HHS in Cook County.

Commissioners Butler, Boykin, Sims, and Garcia were also present, although nearly everyone had left by the end of the meeting almost 2 hours later. 

The hearings called many experts in Cook County and beyond to help explain the patterns and origins of opiate addiction.  Drug poisoning has overtaken motor vehicle accidents for deaths in Illinois and around the nation.

Usage is well distributed all over suburban Cook County, according to Dr. Mason, a specialist in treatment for non-Chicago Cook County area hospitals.

Opiate addicts typically start using and abusing OTC (over the counter) opioids like Vicodin, Tylenol 3, Oxycontin.  When they can no longer justify a medical excuse for obtaining OTC “legal” opioids, they switch to heroin.

Dr. Timothy Condon works with TASC as the Chief Science Officer, and is at the National Institute of Drug Abuse:  Drug abuse is a disease which is treatable.  It is a brain disease.  Death rates from opiates in the Northeast and Midwest are six times higher than in 2006-2007.  Nationally abuse is concentrated in non-Hispanic Whites and Black users.  We now have tools to deal with opiate addiction, which we did not in the past.  It doesn’t matter what is in the syringe, whether it is heroin or an opiate prescription drug, the user is still an addict, and has to be treated.

Narcan or Naloxone is a powerful “new” drug that can revive people who ordinarily would have died from an opiate overdose, but Narcan does not treat the addiction.

The drug of choice for treating opiate addiction is Naltrexone.  Unlike the imperfect Methadone “treatment” that likewise created dependency, Naltrexone is an addiction agonist so it blocks the euphoria that the opiate creates in the brain.  Vivitrol is the time-release version of Naltrexone.

Dr. Eka Jones is with the Sheriff’s office inside the Women’s Justice program for mental health and drug treatment within Cook County Jail.  More than 50% of her enrollees cited heroin as their drug of choice.  Drug treatment has to be tailored to meet individual needs.

Dr. Minella, the Head of Cermak Mental Health Clinic at the Cook County Jail, has been there since 1991.  Everyone gets screened for physical and mental issues during Cook County jail intake, and about 80% have substance histories.  12% actively use heroin of the intake population at the jail.  Of the 500 people in the Detox unit every month, about 80% are heroin users, committing crimes to get heroin.  The inmates are very vulnerable when in detox and the issue is that they don’t stay long enough to get off the substance.  25% leave within 2 days, and 50% leave within 12 days.  6 weeks is considered the proper amount of time to get someone off of opiate addiction.

Judge Charles Byrne from 26^th Street courthouse has the Drug Treatment Court.  Addicts have to be dealt with differently from young people who are caught for the first time.  80% of addicts are heroin “frequent fliers” where they have been in and out of jail and the penitentiary between 5 and fifteen times.  You have to try to get them clean.  Every $1 spent in treatment saves $2 later.  They are typically using $200 to $300 in heroin each day.  They need to be supervised in a sober environment.  If they complete the treatment program, 85% of them stay out of the criminal justice system for at least one year.  74% non-recitivism after three years.  They need jobs as well so they can be able to make money.  Everyone who graduates from the program gets their case dismissed.  Many groups now, including the CTA, have a felon-hiring program.  The drug treatment program gets funded from Judge Evans’ budget.

Dr. Aix, a Stroger Emergency Room doctor and head of Toxicology at Stroger, says we are in the middle of an opioid epidemic.  It began to take off in 2000 when there was over-prescription of opioid OTC drugs.  The opiate prescription drugs lure teens into experimentation.

At Stroger ER there are 5000 patients admitted for drug overdoses in a year, with 20% of them repeat overdosers.

There needs to be an increase in Detox and addiction facilities. 

There are two pilot programs being tested by the State of Illinois in Winnebago County and Madison County.  Both use Vivitrol for long term easing off of opiates, and both use community treatment and outreach to maintain the link to support once the person has left jail.  They use Medicaid to treat people in jail.

Another speaker, Joel Johnson, at HRDI, Human Resources Development Institute, said it was very hard to get Medicaid to pay for Vivitrol treatment, even though it has proven successful.

Chief Scofield, Fire Chief in Orland Park, testified that Orland Park went from 3 to 70 overdoses in the last ten years.  The families are embarrassed and hide their kids and the addiction from the public.

Chief Roberts, head of the Cook County Forest Preserve police, lost his son to a heroin overdose in 2009.  There were 7000 deaths in the nation in 2007, 43,000 in 2014.  He is happy to see the Cook County Board doing something proactive.

Dr. Dan Lustig of the Haymarket Center said that heroin addicts need 6 or 7 treatments of Vivitrol before “freedom from opiates” can take hold.

Sally Thorin, Executive Director of Gateway Foundations, says there are three key parts of treatment.  Proper diagnosis, therapeutic mindfulness, and Vivitrol treatment.

Respectfully submitted by Amy Little

Departmental Review Meetings for the 2015 Budget, October 22, 2014

BUREAU OF TECHNOLOGY

Simona Rollinson, director of the Bureau of Technology began by explaining what her department did. She stated that her department was responsible for the County’s data center, wide area high-speed network, office technology and phone and wireless devices. They also plan, develop and manage software applications, websites and geographic information systems (GIS) to improve workflow process in County offices and meet County residents and business needs for simple responsive transparent and cost effective government. Some of their recent accomplishments include:

• Implemented County-wide email systems
• Installed a jail inmate phone and broadband system and integrate technology to manage criminal justice system
•  Designed and implemented a video conferencing network to improve communication with municipality
•   Reduced telephone cost by reducing the total number of telephone system 
•  Improve property

Some of the issues facing this department are the cost of maintaining Technology and improving Technology. The concern is that by the time they bid-accept and implement systems they are outdated and the maintenance cost of these systems is high.  The cost of consultants in particular has made the cost of maintaining and improving technology very expensive. Disaster recovery system is also very costly. It was suggested that they look into consulting with smaller firms instead of the larger companies.

Commissioners Suffredin, Gorman and Sims all expressed frustration with the Bureau of Technology. They feel that money is allocated to purchase new technology and by the time it is ready to go it is outdated. There has been a lot of turnover in the job of director and all the new directors have asked for more money to improve services but the Commissioners do not see that services have improved. Commissioners suggested that top IT people should be brought in to help with the system with better cooperation from all departments. Commissioner Gorman wants a chart of the past, present and future needs of technology. 

SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT

Sheriff Tom Dart stated that as of today there are 11,677 people incarcerated at Cook County Jail, the average amount is 9,000. 38% of those incarcerated suffer from a mental illness. There are 1700 on electronic monitoring with 70 of those not having a place to go. There is a need to increase the amount of beds and the department is working on this. The biggest issue is that many of these people cannot pay the bond and have no place to go due in part because many of these people suffer from mental illness.

There has been a decrease in the number of employees hired and there is a need to consolidate courthouses especially the old ones like 51^st & Wentworth and Harrison & Kedzie.  By consolidating these courthouses they will save money, provide better security and better services. Sheriff Dart is pleased with the program of using detainees with minor offenses to teardown abandoned houses.

Sheriff Dart stated that they are in a good position with staff, however, there is an overtime issue that has some concern. Overtime is expensive. The issue is more prevalent with employees of the Department of Corrections. They call in sick more often than those of other departments.

Commissioner Suffredin asked if Sherriff Dart will see an issue if the Pension Bill is passed.  Andrea Gibson from the Sheriff Department budget review stated that they are preparing for if bill passes but no extra money has been set aside.

In technology, the Sheriff’s Department purchased a new computer system and is working with local police departments to have them join this system. This system is a cooperative system that will allow the Sheriff’s Department to share information on criminals, etc. with local municipalities. 

CLERK OF THE CIRCUIT COURT

Clerk Dorothy Brown stated that the Clerk of the Circuit Court serves the citizens of Cook County and participants in the judicial system in an efficient, effective and ethical manor. There were 4 key items that the Clerk’s office strived to do:

11.  21^st Century information technology

·         Website that is easy to use and clearly organized

·         Online traffic ticket system

·         An online interactive court system connecting Judges, State’s attorney, public defender to allow them to file online and to send records

·         System with the Sheriff to send information electronically on whether to retain or detain prisoners.

·         Image and document system to be able to send records and forms electronically so that they do away with paper and especially carbon paper.

·         Smart Kiosk in criminal courts to receive court information.

Bottom line she wants her department to become totally paperless.

22.  Customer Service: Strives to provide great customer service to citizens.

33.  Operational Efficiency: all of the new electronic systems will provide greater efficiency to the office.

44.  Financial accountability: going paperless will lower the cost. The commissioners were glad to see that there will be an end to this department use of carbon paper. This will save money. They also closed a warehouse with the saving of 1.2 million however they are in the process of opening a Records and Digitization Center in Cicero, which should improve the system at a cost savings. Clerk Brown stated that her department is going Lean and Green.

The Commissioners commented that they are pleased with the changes to this department. Clerk Brown requested that the Commissioners promote the use of electronic traffic ticket system in their districts. There is a saving to municipalities that use the Electronic E-Ticket system. There were no large increases to her budget for 2015.

Submitted by Nancy Marcus

January 15, 2014 Cook County Board Meeting

Dealing with Recycling, Bad Deeds, Criminal Justice and Ethics

This very long Cook County Board meeting was at times difficult to follow, even for some commissioners:  a lot of switching back and forth between committee meetings, the general board meeting, and the consent calendar.  However, several important ordinances/amendments and resolutions were passed, often with lengthy discussion and public testimony.

Recycling:  With a close 8-7 vote in favor, a very long amendment (20 pages) to the Solid Waste ordinance was passed.  This basically describes a new method of inspections by the County of solid waste and recycling facilities (transfer stations).  New fees will be charged to these facilities, reporting requirements are more stringent and frequent, penalties are delineated, and future policies will be formed based on information collected from these facilities.  Objections to this ordinance included the additional fees per ton of waste that would be passed on to the taxpayers/users;  increased record keeping by owners of the facilities;  possible anti-business focus;  and the large number of exemptions in Cook County making this ordinance cover only 1/3 of the county.  Chicago already has a plan in place to cover this and municipal-owned facilities are exempt.  Sponsor Comm. Moore indicated that this ordinance would help encourage recycling and prevent surrounding land from being tainted by waste pollution--particularly in southern Cook County.

Bad Deeds (Unlawful Clouding of Title):  Apparently in Cook County it is easier to steal a house than steal a car--according to Karen Yarborough, Recorder of Deeds.  It appears that for only a small filing fee, a person can change another person's title of land--their home--and then take it over physically by changing locks on the doors and moving in.  Although there is state law prohibiting this,  the County Board passed an additional ordinance that would address this problem by invoking thousands of dollars in fines and hopefully make the enforcement against this quicker and more effective.  (As an aside, homeowners can sign up with the Recorder of Deed's office to get an alert anytime someone changes their land/home title.)

Criminal Justice:  An ordinance amendment and a resolution were both passed with regard to the criminal justice system in Cook County.  The first establishes an Advisory Committee to the Justice Advisory Council Department.  Members of this non-paid committee (the President or designee, 3 members of the CC Board, 1 law enforcement person, 2 social service people), all appointed by the President, would issue a recommendations report at the end of the year regarding violence prevention, intervention and reduction strategies, and programs.  Topics would include gun court, straw purchases of guns, violence with guns.  This was deferred until the next board meeting as some discussions about this committee are still ongoing.
The second is a resolution transferring the court-ordered Prisoner Release Order to the President's Office instead of the Sheriff's Office, where it originated.  This issue has been in the news quite a bit lately, with controversy over who is in charge of releasing more prisoners from the county jail, which tends to get overcrowded.  Objections to this transfer center on whether this process should be under the Judicial branch rather than the President's office.  This still needs to be approved by  a higher authority (State of Ill., U.S.?) before it can be in effect.

Ethics:  Two items that were passed dealt with ethics in Cook County government.  The first is an amendment to the procurement code sponsored by Comm. Suffredin requiring employees to report "skullduggery" in the procurement process to the inspector general.  The second is a resolution sent to the State General Assembly to include Cook County in the state's Ethics Act.  Apparently this was an oversight on the part of the sponsor of the legislation in the General Assembly.

Notes on the processes at the Board meeting:  This observer has attended numerous Cook County Board meetings over the past six years and procedures have markedly improved.  However,  there are still some that make it difficult for the public audience to fully understand what has transpired at the meeting:
1.  The League is pleased that public testimony is now a part of all meetings, but during this meeting's public testimony, many commissioners were engaged in side conversations rather than listening to the speakers.  Although the commissioners themselves may already know the information, this observer found some valuable viewpoints brought up by some outside speakers.
2.  There were  many "last minute" substitute amendments that were not available to the audience--even on-line.  Because the substitution difference was not  explained nor mentioned at the meeting, the public audience did not know what specifics the Board actually passed.
3.  Committee reports which contain resolutions and other important content are sometimes passed as a whole without mentioning the particulars.  At today's meeting, this lead to passage of a Committee Report without it being obvious what was contained in that report.  This is especially difficult for the observer to know when the committee met and passed ordinances, amendments and resolutions just the day before.
This observer hopes some adjustments can be made to help the public better understand and follow the Board Meetings.