Dart approaches compliance on all fronts

The Cook County Sheriff's Office is closer than ever to getting out from under strict rules set by three separate federal court orders involving jail conditions and hiring that have nettled the department for years.

No one is going to confuse the notorious Cook County jail with a luxury hotel any time soon, but even government watchdogs allow conditions have improved under Sheriff Tom Dart to the point where it's "calmer, safer, quieter."

This week, however, came some major new advances. First the Cook County Board approved an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice that basically rolls two of the orders - the Duran and Harrington decrees over conditions at the county jail - into another investigation and sets a timetable and conditions for compliance that could offer closure in 18 months.

Then Dart announced he was shutting down two partial divisions at Cook County jail to cut capacity from 10,000 to 9,100, freeing up 175 positions, which should ease court demands that the office hire hundreds of more corrections officers, at a potential savings of $15 million a year.

And on Friday, the sheriff's office agreed at a federal court hearing to stipulations on hiring and promotions as part of the Shakman Decree, the infamous anti-patronage lawsuit that, like Duran and Harrington, goes back to the '70s. Although it doesn't yet settle the decree, the sheriff's office became the first Cook County or Chicago governmental body to reach an agreement on Shakman, a major step toward compliance.

In the words of Assistant State's Attorney Pat Driscoll, "There is light at the end of the tunnel" on Duran and Harrington, and for complying with Shakman as well. Duran was mainly about overcrowding at the jail and Harrington was on mental-health care for prisoners, while Shakman was a more wide-ranging patronage suit that continues to embroil the sheriff's office, the county, Chicago and the Cook County Democratic Organization.

A potential end to the decrees involving the sheriff's office would save the county millions of dollars spent annually on lawyers, compliance administrators and other largely bureaucratic positions. "They are really draining our treasury," said Chicago Democratic Commissioner Earlean Collins, who has called such entrenched posts "pinstripe patronage."

Bartlett Republican Commissioner Timothy Schneider applauded a potential end to the "cottage industry we've created for retired judges and attorneys," who are typically assigned to police compliance in the suits.

"I'm delighted to see it will be the end of Duran and Harrington," added Crestwood Democratic Commissioner Joan Patricia Murphy.

Charles Fasano, who recently left his position as director of the prisons and jails program at the John Howard Association of Illinois, a watchdog agency, took part in the last negotiations on the department of justice agreement. "I think it really is filling in a lot of the holes that existed in Duran. It will really help in many respects," he said. "It's short-term ... and it's got the power of the federal government behind it."

He also applauded the plan for the first cutbacks in capacity in decades at the county jail. "Thanks in large part to lowered admissions and a lowered population, the jail has become a much better place in many respects than it had been for a number of years. It is calmer, safer, quieter," Fasano said.

Both said additional reforms were possible. In announcing the capacity cutbacks, Dart credited the cut in the crime rate and the lowered number of prisoners being processed at the jail, and pointed out it had little to do with electronic monitoring, something all the current candidates for County Board president have supported as a way to lower the jail population. Dart said judges have placed about 370 nonviolent offenders on such monitoring, but the county has 1,500 bracelets waiting to be assigned to others.

"They could reduce the jail population even further," Fasano said. "Who knows, one day they might be able to close down a whole division, which would really save them money."