High-risk inmates causing tougher job for Kane correctional officers
Kane County is doing a good job of keeping the people who need to be in jail behind bars while also freeing those who would be harmed and do more harm later by staying in jail. That's the outcome of one snapshot examination of the risk levels of 330 inmates on Dec. 5.
The downside is filling the jail with high-risk inmates, heightening the danger to corrections officers.
Court services Executive Director Lisa Aust was inspired to take a deeper look at the jail population after Cook County hit a record low jail population about a year ago. She also wanted to see how well her staff is doing at assessing the true risk of defendants during the pretrial process.
During that process, her team looks at the nature of the offense and criminal history to determine how likely someone is to not show up for court or commit another crime while awaiting trial.
The stakes are high, Aust said. Getting it wrong can mean someone gets hurt. That someone might be a new or repeat crime victim, or it could be a jail stay transforming a one-time mistake into future crimes.
Aust shared stats from studies indicating a low-risk defendant who spends two or three days in jail is 40 percent more likely to commit new crimes. Low-risk defendants put in jail for eight to 14 days are 51 percent more likely to commit another crime with two years.
"We actually do harm to people when we hold them when they are low-risk," Aust said. "We disrupt their social connections to the community and their family. They lose their jobs. They can't make rent.
"We want to identify high-risk people who should continue to be held in jail and make sure those are the people in our jail."
Aust found that over the last three years, about 40 percent of defendants her staff evaluates receive the high-risk tag. Another 40 percent get the low-risk tag. The remaining 20 percent are medium-risk.
On Dec. 5, 60 percent of the jail inmates were high-risk people. Another 20 percent were medium-risk. The final 20 percent were low-risk.
Aust then took a deeper look at the people still being jailed. The vast majority were accused of crimes so egregious that a judge put the person in jail regardless of the risk assessment. They were crimes like purchasing firearms and distributing them to gang members, aggravated domestic battery with a serious injury, armed robbery and distribution of child pornography.
"I'm really comfortable with those people being held at the jail," Aust said.
But filling the jail with high-risk inmates increases the risk of being a corrections officer.
Heading into the recent election, former Kane County Sheriff Don Kramer identified workers' compensation as the No. 1 reason for low staffing levels. Low staffing levels put the remaining staff at even greater risk.
A year ago, Kramer said it was common practice for a single correctional officer to supervise up to 128 inmates at a time. The staffing situation, Kramer said, contributed to the Delnor Hospital hostage situation in 2017 that resulted in a nurse being beaten and raped.
New Sheriff Ron Hain has talked about various ways he's working to improve the situation, but problems remain. Just six weeks ago, Hain conducted a cell block shakedown on the heels of multiple incidents of assaults on officers and inmate behavioral issues.