How Illinois Supreme Court Intervention Can Help Cook County - Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts

How Illinois Supreme Court Intervention Can Help Cook County

In response to President Preckwinkle’s letter to the Illinois Supreme Court, Chief Justice Thomas Kilbride has answered, proposing a meeting of the major criminal justice stakeholders and a conference of regional and national experts to discuss the management of the criminal justice system in Cook County. In this effort our supreme court follows in the footsteps of other state supreme courts throughout the

country (Pennsylvania, Missouri, New York, Ohio, and others), helping coordinate criminal justice in counties and cities in need of systemic reform.

To discuss the Illinois Supreme Court Intervention, I appeared on Wednesday’s episode of WTTW’s show ‘Chicago Tonight’ along with Juliana Stratton, Executive Director of Cook County’s Justice Advisory Council, Rob Wildeboer, criminal and legal affairs reporter for WBEZ Chicago Public Radio, and Margaret Egan, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart’s Director of Public Policy. The segment is available here.

We at Chicago Appleseed believe that this action by the Illinois Supreme Court will serve as an effective source of needed reform in Cook County based on two key traits: (1) it will provide a way past the single greatest obstacle facing reform in Cook County today—the lack of coordination; and (2) it is well-timed as resources for treatment are more plentiful now than ever.

On September 29th, Chicago Appleseed sent the Illinois Supreme Court our proposal asking the Court to convene the criminal justice stakeholders in Cook County for the broad purpose of facilitating a plan to solve problems collaboratively, and to bring about a coordinated system of criminal justice in Cook County.

Available here are our own cover letter and proposal to the Illinois Supreme Court which discusses at greater length the following:

Coordination is the Missing Piece for Many Needed Reforms

In between 2007 and 2011, felony case filings in Cook County went down by 17% and yet the length of stay in Cook County jail increased by an average of 6.2 days. Over the past two decades Specialty Courts, drug school, deferred prosecution and other diversion programs have started but have not been able to affect the way the typical case travels through the system. The public debate has tried to find a single answer to why this has been so—one stakeholder, statute, or practice that is to blame. But the truth is there is no smoking gun. There are well-meaning people in each of the critical agencies who have embraced concepts of differentiated case management, diversion and rehabilitation, and early assessment of cases, but have been stymied due to lack of coordination between the organizations.

The current major areas that are ripe for reform are the ones that require the most coordination to achieve. These include: the need for early assessment for diversion or dismissal; expanding pre-trial services; looking at cutting down pre-trial case processing time between many points in the process (from arrest to bond court to preliminary hearings); and the manner in which bonds are set.

For example, currently assessment for dismissal or diversion programs typically happens at preliminary hearings which, according to statute, may take place as long as 30 days or 60 days from the date of arrest—depending on whether the defendant was in custody. We must identify defendants for dismissal, deferral, or placement into diversion programs much earlier in the process, but that kind of reform is impossible on the part of a single stakeholder. Bond court and criminal division judges, the state’s attorneys, pre-trial services officers, and others all need to be at the table to make this change possible. Only through their cooperation can we bridge communication gaps between agencies and between phases of the process. This approach to collaboration has been employed successfully in other large urban settings such as Philadelphia and New York City. It can happen here.

Resources are Finally in Place

When Chicago Appleseed began calling for a coordinated system of treatment diversion in the criminal courts in 2007, the response was a consistent – and legitimate – refrain that treatment diversion requires money that Cook County did not then have. Now, however, the Affordable Health Care Act is providing the financial resources to make extensive diversion possible, but only if the criminal justice system in Cook County will use them effectively through a coordinated system beginning with early assessment of defendants and with subsequent utilization of community-based services.

A TASC analysis indicates that of the new Medicaid enrollees, 35,000 will have serious mental iIllnesses, 74,500 will have severe psychological distress, and 71,000 will have substance abuse disorders and will likely be involved in the criminal justice system.

A Golden Moment for Coordination

Coordination is already beginning in Cook County. Over the past few years the major criminal justice stakeholders have come together to take on ambitious projects. The Justice and Health Initiative have initiated a massive enrollment process CountyCare. The Access to Community Treatment (ACT) Court has been formed to model various innovations in differentiated case management techniques, information management technology, and early assessment to divert low-level felony offenders with lengthy backgrounds from prison to treatment and to export these innovations to other courts throughout the county.

We applaud the criminal justice stakeholders in this effort, but also recognize that these efforts, as ambitious as they are, fall short of affecting the way the typical case travels through our court system. Diversion must be brought to scale. The Circuit Court of Cook County must re-invent a portion of itself so that it can meet the challenges presented by huge numbers of defendants with drug and mental health issues. For these reasons we welcome the Supreme Court’s intervention.

In Conclusion

Now is not the time for finger-pointing or placing blame on particular stakeholders. The reforms we need are not within the power of any single player—they are shared amongst all the stakeholders. The missing element to the next stage of evolution for Cook County is coordination. And this is what the Illinois Supreme Court both can and should provide.