The impending crisis in criminal justice: The costs of neglect
The judges, prosecutors and defense lawyers in our felony courts are overwhelmed with drug cases. Proposed budget cuts, on top of cuts already made, threaten a complete breakdown. So what? Why should you care? Some things to consider: Think about what happens when our criminal courts make mistakes: in some of the mistakes, truly dangerous offenders are set free and do further harm. People get hurt. In other mistakes, we convict someone who is truly innocent. He goes to prison and his children are deprived of his support. In both of these mistakes, the consequences can be devastating — and courts that are overwhelmed are likely to make mistakes. The Cook County Jail houses nearly 10,000 inmates. The sheriff calculates that it costs approximately $40,000 to hold one inmate for a year. As of August 2007, there were 750 cases at least two years old, waiting to be tried. Without an adequate number of prosecutors and public defenders, there is no way to cut the backlog. Caseloads are heavier here than in other major cities. Each judge has, on average, 275 cases pending at any one time and receives more than 800 new cases per year. We are talking about felony cases — serious charges, not misdemeanors. In
In
The Chicago Appleseed Fund for
Justice recently completed an extensive report on our felony courts.
It is based on 104 interviews with judges, prosecutors and defense
lawyers who work in the courts at 26th and
Judges estimate that at least 20 percent and perhaps as many as half of the inmates at Cook County Jail suffer from untreated mental illness. Jails have become the largest providers of mental health care in our large cities, and this de facto mental health care system is woefully inadequate. A majority of the judges interviewed in the Appleseed study said that mental health needs are not being treated effectively. We would save millions if we devoted more resources to treating mentally ill offenders and drug users. Processing drug offenders on a ''revolving door'' basis, arresting them but failing to rehabilitate them, produces only ruined lives and neighborhoods infested with drug dealers. ''Tough on crime'' rhetoric may help politicians win elections, but it does not control crime, promote justice or balance the budget. Consider whether our war on drugs
is working: In 2003, 82 percent of all males and 61 percent of all
females arrested in
Last year, the state's attorney diverted 3,400 adult defendants and kept them out of the jail. This highly successful program is now threatened by further budget cuts proposed by the Cook County Board. The state's attorney's office
formerly ran a
Citizens and institutions outside the criminal justice system bear much of the burden. An increase in crime produces increased taxes, health care costs and private security costs. Imprisonment removes workers from the labor force — in many cases, not just during the period of their imprisonment but permanently because of their prison record. Unnecessary incarceration imposes significant costs on businesses because it reduces the size of the work force and lowers productivity, and it imposes costs on the working poor because of lost wages. A judge in the
Without a sufficient number of lawyers, on both sides of the cases, mistakes will be made. Cases must be investigated and prepared for trial, and the law requires that criminal cases be brought to trial within a specified time period. If the cases are not properly tried, potential criminals will be returned to the streets and innocent defendants will be sent to prison. You
will not like the city that results.
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