By Bill Cameron, WLS-AM News
(CHICAGO) The number of inmates in Cook County Jail is down by a few thousand, but Sheriff Tom Dart has some regrets about the the reforms that made it possible.
Letting non-violent suspects out on electronic monitoring is saving lots of money, but Sheriff Dart told county budget hearings the reform has gone too far, “I was the biggest proponent of so many of them, the mentally ill and others. Long overdue, great to happen. But I think the pendulum want too far because the numbers we’re seeing on electronic monitoring, there are categories we never saw before. We never saw people charged with murder, attempt murder. We never saw those.”
In one ridiculous case, Dart says he was ordered to turn off one suspects ankle monitor so he could go be a police chief but the guy wasn’t a police chief and there was no department.
@ 2018 WLS-AM News
