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At the June 19 meeting of the Cook County Board of Commissioners, Commissioner John Fritchey put forward a resolution entitled “Evidence-Based Cook County Bail System Reform.” The resolution urges the Cook County judiciary to overhaul the “failing pre-trial justice system,” starting with introducing evidence-based risk assessment in setting pre-trial conditions of bail, coupled with longer pre-trial defendant interviews to properly assess flight risk and the threat to public safety. The goal of the resolution is to bring down population of the Cook County Jail — which is near capacity and has chronic problems with overcrowding — by 25% over the next 12 months, and to do so by lessening the reliance on monetary bail, which serves as a poor proxy for flight or public safety risk.

The resolution astutely points to Cook County’s excessive use of monetary bail as compared with other jurisdictions. For example, approximately 70% of New York City pre-trial felony defendants and 80% of Washington D.C. felony pre-trial defendants are released on personal recognizance; whereas in Cook County, in 2011, 79% of defendants were either ordered to pay a monetary bond or were held in jail without bond. An over-reliance on cash bonds, the resolution rightly observes, removes the bond system’s ability to gauge flight risk and public safety – the true purpose behind bail – and, instead, simply serves as a measure of the defendant’s wherewithal to get the money. A revised bail structure using more evidence-based risk assessment tools, the resolution urges, will reduce the Cook County jail population, save the taxpayers of Cook County a great deal of money, and bring the focus back to flight risk and public safety. Finally, the resolution urges the Cook County judiciary to coordinate with other official stakeholders to arrive at these changes; and it is this type of coordination which is the key to so much needed reform in Cook County.

There is not one easy fix to the jail-overcrowding problem in Cook County: early case assessment and diversion; expanded use of electronic monitoring; reductions in delay in the felony case process throughout the system. All of these require the coordination of the various stakeholders.

As we at Chicago Appleseed have remarked before, our county has no comprehensive criminal justice strategy and it is that lack of coordination that is keeping us from introducing early case assessment tools amongst other mechanisms that would significantly reduce jail populations as they have in other cities and counties.  One of the more significant drivers of jail population is delay—a topic we explore in great depth in our forthcoming report “Felony Case Process Drivers of Length of Stay in the Cook County Jail.” For example, in 2010 and 2011, a total of more than 20,000 defendants were jailed for an average of 25 days, only to have their cases dropped or dismissed. A Chicago Appleseed analysis of jail data indicates that as many as half of these individuals were being detained on drug charges. Other parts of the country, such as Brooklyn and Philadelphia, have instituted early case assessments for arrests, diverting or declining to prosecute the weakest cases. A 2011 Pew research report on Philadelphia’s reforms linked the policy changes to a 12% decrease in the daily jail population, 10% drop in jail and police costs, faster case processing times, and a dramatic increase in court appearance rates. The Cook County criminal justice system is comprised of numerous agencies and funding sources, but the opportunity to reform is sometimes spread unevenly across these bodies. For example, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office would incur all of the costs for felony review of drug arrests, while the court, the sheriff, and others would reap the benefits of lighter caseloads and lower jail population. We will not accomplish effective systemic reform, including a reduction in the Cook County jail population, until we can coordinate all of these parts. For more on early assessment, see our policy brief on Early Criminal Case Assessment in Urban Jurisdictions.

Delay has exacerbated the jail-overcrowding effect of cash bonds as well. Between 2007 and 2011, the average length of stay in Cook County jail for a defendant’s released on bond increased 39%, from an average of 9 to 13 days. Multiplied across 20,529 individuals, this seemingly small 4-day increase translates into an additional 82,116 jail bed days. Divided by 365 days, this increase means an additional 225 inmates in the jail’s average daily population.

Previously on this blog, we shared a white paper prepared by Tom Wartowski, a former Winnebago County Assistant State’s Attorney who was appointed Jail Population Analyst under a court order by the U.S. District Court of Northern Illinois to reduce overcrowding of the Winnebago County Jail. His 2005 white paper, entitled “Bail Out of Medieval System,” explains how cash bonds are ineffective ways to mitigate the risks of defendant flight or to public safety, and pretrial release decisions should be based upon validated risk assessments, which have proved to be much more effective predictors of an individual’s failure to appear or reoffend than judicial intuition. The paper can be downloaded here or on our Criminal Justice Page.

This latest resolution is not the first push for a coordinated reform effort. Recognizing the need for coordination, Cook County Commissioners Earlene Collins and Larry Suffredin sponsored an ordinance creating the “Jail Diversion Program,” which the Board passed in March, 2010. The ordinance orders a diversion “Advisory Panel” to establish “a collaborative relationship between the State, the County, local municipalities and local community based mental health and substance abuse disorder service providers with emphasis on mutual goals, shared responsibilities and benefits.” With representatives from public safety agencies, mental health providers, and researchers, the panel would be similar to successful groups guiding crime strategy for many major American cities. But to date, the panel has not been convened.

Commissioner Fritchey’s resolution urges the court in the right direction, but what the county really needs is a comprehensive criminal justice strategy, beginning with the enforcement of the 2010 ordinance for the Jail Diversion Program and its Advisory Panel which could truly reform the “failing pre-trial justice system” as the new resolution puts it.

Commissioner Fritchey’s resolution has been submitted to the Legislative subcommittee and can be found as “New Item #2” on page 69 of the Cook County Board of Commissions Meeting Agenda, available here.