No new jail

Last year the county saw we had two full jails and began conversations for a multi-million dollar expansion. Residents immediately spoke up against jail expansion and it became a key issue in county board races.

Jails primarily house innocent-until-proven-guilty people awaiting trial who can't afford bail. To take a wage earner out of their home for months until their guilt or innocence is determined is to ruin their reputation, their job, and compromise the health and safety of their dependents.

If there are more beds, there will be more inmates, since there is no administrative impetus to find alternatives to incarceration. For those who doubt this logic, consider this fact. After the outcry against jail expansion, law enforcement officials took steps to decrease jail crowding. Within a matter of months, the jail population shrunk from full (around 275-300) to 175.

This goes to show that if we want to decrease our jail population, we can - it just takes political will. We call on our county board to have the political will to keep the jail population low, close the downtown jail, and don't waste our money on jail expansion. Fund the public defender's office, youth programming, job training, education, social services, and alternatives to incarceration.

Here are some strategies for keeping the jail population low:

  1. No or low bails except for those who a danger to other's physical safety.
  2. Speed up the process of resolving cases without compromising someone's defense.
    By state law, an innocent person who has been charged with a crime can wait in jail 4 months before resolution of their case. Judge Difanis recently decreed that those in custody will be brought to trial within 60 days: "it will force (the lawyers) to look at the file, assess it, and make a determination." Difanis said to the News-Gazette. We support speeding up the process, but given that about 75% of cases are handled by public defenders who are carrying 3 times the maximum load set by the Illinois ABA, the problem is not lazy lawyers. We are concerned that demanding speedy trials without dealing with systemic issues will compromise a person's defense. The result is that there are less people in our local jails, but more, potentially innocent people in state prison.

    In addition, we investigating claims by jail residents who say they have been there for over 4 months without seeing an attorney and for over 9 months without a hearing.
  3. Increase the use of home incarceration. Don't make people pay for it.
    With home incarceration, an electronic anklet is put on the person in custody. They are able to go to work, pick up their kids from daycare, etc, but required to be home by certain times. This allows someone to keep their job and be a parent, and it costs taxpayers less. Right now people pay for the "privilege" of home incarceration - this should be available to all regardless of income. Sheriff Walsh has expanded this program since taking office in 2002 - we support continued expansion.
  4. Embrace court diversion, mediation, victim-offender reconciliation whenever possible.
    The county spends $180,000 annually on programs to prevent crime and recidivism, while initial talk this summer was that a jail expansion could cost as much as $20 million. And the county has a new tool to fund court diversion it is not yet using.

Stories on Jail Expansion: