As violent crime escalates in Chicago, the Cook County sheriff has criticized the legal system’s approach to violent offenders being placed on electronic monitoring.
Most of the 2,600 people electronically monitored by the sheriff’s department are charged with violent crimes, said Sheriff Tom Dart, a Democrat elected in 2010. The county’s chief judge also has an electronic monitoring program, the sheriff said.
“Home monitoring is not a program for people charged with violent offenses,” Dart said. “Seventy-five percent to 80% of my people on home monitoring are charged with a violent offense. I have about 100 people on home monitoring who are charged with murder.”
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“The notion of having two systems to me is illogical,” Dart said. “I have literally no idea how many people are in that program.”
Anti-crowding measures in jails due to the pandemic and a 2017 cash bail reform caused the number of offenders at home on ankle bracelet monitoring to increase from about 1,200 to 3,400, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said last month. Lightfoot said the majority of violent offenders or those charged with violent crime don’t reoffend while on home monitoring. There have been 50 arrests for shootings and murders by those in the program.
“The Cook County electronic monitoring program is fundamentally broken in a way that makes us fundamentally unsafe,” Lightfoot said.
In July, a man who escaped his home surveillance was killed in a standoff with police, CBS 2 reported. One of the suspects in an April shooting death of a 7-year-old was also out of confinement on home monitoring.
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The Cook County chief judge’s office did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment. It released the following statement last month in response to Lightfoot’s criticism.
“We have been informed that the mayor made a statement regarding electronic monitoring, however, we have not yet received her request,” the chief judge’s office said in a statement. “We share the concerns about the tragic violence in our community. This is both a local and a national problem. We look forward to continuing to work with our partners in finding solutions to this complex issue.”
Chicago’s violent crime rate increased 7.5% in 2021 compared to 2019.
