Do We Have The Right People Locked Up?

Why Cook County Jail Is Bursting At The Seams With Inmates
This Sept. 29, 2011 photo shows Section - 5 at the Cook County Jail in Chicago, the second largest county jail in the nation, where inmates are processed for release. Cook County Commissioners have passed an ordinance this month that orders the jail not to hold illegal immigrants until Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers can pick them up. Their move is part of a backlash against a federal policy that many see as unfair to immigrants, breaking up families and costing local governments money they don't have to keep suspects for the 48 hours ICE needs to take them into federal custody. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
This Sept. 29, 2011 photo shows Section - 5 at the Cook County Jail in Chicago, the second largest county jail in the nation, where inmates are processed for release. Cook County Commissioners have passed an ordinance this month that orders the jail not to hold illegal immigrants until Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers can pick them up. Their move is part of a backlash against a federal policy that many see as unfair to immigrants, breaking up families and costing local governments money they don't have to keep suspects for the 48 hours ICE needs to take them into federal custody. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)

Increasingly the [Cook County] jail is warehousing defendants who simply can't afford to leave. And taxpayers simply can't afford to keep them there. At a time Chicago continues to make international headlines for violence, officials estimate that tens of millions of dollars are spent each year jailing people who pose few risks to the public, limiting resources for crime prevention and rehabilitation.

If anyone needed a warning that the jail population is getting out of hand, it came late last summer. On August 20 Cook County sheriff Tom Dart announced that the inmate count had climbed to 10,182, its highest level in six years.

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