![]() ![]() What the next battleground for reform will be: We and another number of organizations are looking into why the length of stay is increasing.” Even though you have fewer people going in, the people that are going in are staying there longer. Another reason that it’s stabilized is that the length of stay in the Cook County Jail is going up. “The number has now plateaued and the advocates are trying to figure out why it stopped going down. There was a dramatic drop in jail population between September 2017 and January 2018. “ was a key benchmark milestone in July 2017. When the Cook County Jail population started (and stopped) dropping: That all got worked out, following negotiations held in our offices.” That all went into effect on December 1, 2008, over the great objections of the sheriff’s department that said that logistically it was not possible to take people from the basement of 26th street to the first floor safely. In fact, it would also implement a pretrial services program, which had not been in existence since 2001 because of budgetary constraints. “On October 1, 2008, Judge Evans announced that was going to go to in-person hearings. When Cook County switched to in-person hearings and added pretrial services: You could end up having people who were in jail who should not have been in there and vice versa.” “Sometimes the judges would end up giving bonds to the wrong person until somebody would say ‘Judge, I think this is the wrong person.’ And lo and behold, someone could be in jail or freed on bond or have an individual recognizance bond and they didn’t deserve it because it belonged to someone else. Defendants would step in front of the podium… and the judge was in Room 101 and would look at the defendant on a television screen. “There used to be a podium set up in the basement of 26th and California and sort of an ancient version of a camera. When bond hearings were held via video conference: People get arrested, they’re held overnight at the lockup at the police station, and the next morning at 6 a.m., they get bused to 26th and California.” “Then-Chief Judge Donald O’Connell centralized bond court for felonies on J… There was an idea that it would be more efficient to have centralized bond court at 26thStreet. “Bond court used to be in six municipal courthouses found throughout Cook County. When bond court was centralized at 26th and California: Here are some of the highlights from the conversation on the many changes to bond court over the years: ![]() Malcolm Rich of the Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice, a research and advocacy organization that aims to identify and propose solutions to systemic problems in the courts, spoke with City Bureau about the changes within the Cook County Courts and the next battlefield for reform. By December 2017, three months after the implementation of the order, the Cook County Jail population had decreased by 1,500 to its lowest total in decades.Ī decade ago, these changes were unthinkable. This directed judges to set monetary bonds only in amounts people could pay. Evans issued an order stating that no one should be incarcerated solely because they cannot afford to pay their bond. Over the past few years, bond reform has taken center stage for efforts to reform the Cook County Courts. Malcolm Rich, executive director of the Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice, offers a look back at Cook County Courts’ bond system over the past decade– and a look at what’s next. ![]()
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