A person asked on line about the fights at the jail this past week where inmates stabbed each other. “With todays riot I think all tax payers should call Sheriff Dart and ask why he refuses to hire more staff as federally mandated, why the E.R.T. (emergency response team) doesn’t search or respond to trouble, why doesnt he fire Director Godinez.”
The answer is not wasting tax-payer dollars on more guards. We need to reduce the jail population to less than 6,000 from its previous high of nearly 11,000. Non-violent offenders should be sentenced to alternatives other than jail that actually benefit society. There are lots of things a sentenced criminal can do as community service other than just picking up garbage, including providing free or reduced services as an employee for the state in almost any job category. Mentally ill convicts, including addicts, should be treated not just jailed so jail does not become a revolving door. There is not even 1/4 the mental health services available to probationers or parolees that are needed. Guards should be required to have a higher level of training, not only in terms of judo, but also in recognizing and de-escalating violence due to mental illness, as well as not treating every refusal to do as told as voluntary and requiring force. Mentally ill are often confused and react better and more compliantly with “herding them gently” or backing-off and giving them space, instead of with brute force, which generally will be irrationally resisted. Women who have been raped or assaulted may go into flashbacks and not even realize where they are, as they are reliving in their mind the brutal attack. Guards need to be taught to control without brutality and foul language. This is not a good example. They should be teaching inmates how to resolve conflicts peacefully and civily not escalate them to violence as the officers often do, because that is what they are trained to do.
Another internet writer stated: “Amen to that, Linda. Why are so many non-violents that could be on house arrest still in jail. And why does the judge get to say “this drug addict is not fit for rehabilitation” without even giving it a try? It baffles me.”
You have to understand Cook Co runs on patronage. You have to have large armies of uneducated workers who vote for you as a candidate, and bring out the vote by acting as poll watchers and bringing people to the polls, especially dead people. Sheriff deputies, Court Clerk staff, DCFS workers, IDOC staff, etc., fullful this role nicely.
To hire such a large army you need to make sure they take long lunches, do only half the job they could so you can hire two for every one employee needed, or campaign on public time. You make your payroll bloated with excess staff. You fire employees who are efficient. You remind employees that if they work to fast they are depriving another person of a job. You promote only those who enforce campaigning and fundraising efforts. You promote incompetents who don’t think for themselves, never questions “authority”, and are loyal to the patronage system. You don’t document anything and you engage in deals behind closed doors.
In order to have lots of guards you need to deny personal recognizance bonds for non-violent (I-Bonds). You need to put people in jail instead of on probation. You need excessive sentences, particularly for drug and non-violent crimes. You need a revolving door of a corrupt parole system and no mental health or drug addiction treatment.
So you need lots of prisoners or you can’t hire lots of guards and keep complaining that you need more guards! That’s the way the machine works to keep the corrupt in office. Guards are used! They are coerced and manipulated and made to think that if they squeal by going to 2111 S. Roosevel FBI office and ask for a duty agent and then provide evidence of corruption, patronage, brutality, medical neglect, excessive force, and fraud, that they will lose their jobs! Guards are fools to cooperate with this corruption. They would have a better job, better working environment, better benefits, if they were trained properly, if they followed the law, and if 10 % of our tax dollars weren’t going into political campaigns, like (”Friends of Madigan) through illegal kickbacks (bribery).
Remember the guards are abused as much as the inmates because they work in crowded unsafe conditions, are improperly trained and encouraged to be sadist, foul-mouthed and vulgar, intolerent, and violent hotheads, and without proper mental health and drug addiction treatment the inmates are dangerous. Guards are simply crazy to keep voting for the same idiots who are USING THEM and demanding 10 % kickbacks (bribes) to their political funds like “Friends of Madigan”. We need a massive grass roots movement, including the guards to vote out of office these criminals including Stroger, Madigan (Lisa & Michael), Dart, the Daleys, Beavers, Burkes, Jones, Steeles, Lipinskys etc., and their puppets. Political office in Illinois needs to stop being an inherited oligarchy. We simply have to help the FBI and U.S. Attorney take down King Richard Thompson, his Lords Madigans, Daleys, Burkes, Beavers, etc., the Sheriff of Nottingham Dart (previously Sheahan), and his high executioner Alvarez (previously Divine).
Anyone who wishes to help me do this – citizens and officers alike – you can even help in anonymous ways – e-mail me at picepil@aol.com.
