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Original article: www.nytimes.com/2008/07/18/us/18cook.html CHICAGO -- People awaiting trial here at the Cook County Jail, one of the nation's largest local jails, have endured vastly inadequate medical care, beatings at the hands of jail workers and dilapidated, dangerous building conditions often left unrepaired for months, federal authorities said on Thursday. Grim images peppered 98 pages of federal findings from a sweeping 17-month investigation about the jail, a West Side complex of buildings, the oldest of which once housed Al Capone, that is now temporary home to about 9,800 men and women. The investigation by the civil rights division of the United States Department of Justice and the office of Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the United States attorney here, found that the jail had systematically violated the constitutional rights of inmates. The Cook County Sheriff's Office, which oversees the jail, strongly denied that. Among dozens of glimpses of life inside the jail, the federal investigators wrote of an inmate who, after exposing himself to a female officer in July 2007, was handcuffed, then hit and kicked by a group of jail officers. Some inmates were not given their mental illness medications for weeks, the investigators said, while others were given such drugs without records of why. In August 2006, an inmate's leg was amputated after an infection beneath a cast went untreated. "You can't have conditions where people are dying and being amputated," Mr. Fitzgerald said at a news conference. The authorities would not say what had led in early 2007 to an investigation into the jail, a 96-acre complex that houses mainly people waiting for their trials and that, by some federal measures, was in 2007 among the top half-dozen jails in the nation in numbers of inmates. About 100,000 people are admitted to the Cook County Jail in a given year. The outcome of the findings remains uncertain. Mr. Fitzgerald said he hoped to reach an agreement with Cook County officials regarding changes at the jail. If those efforts fail, a lawsuit is possible, prosecutors said, under a 1980 act that has led to federal investigations into claims of systematic abuse at 430 jails, mental health facilities, nursing homes and other public institutions. Perhaps most remarkable about the federal findings was the comprehensive scope of the critique; almost no element of the jail seemed to meet muster. Investigators pointed to poor supervision of inmates, the presence of weapons, mistreatment of inmates, unsatisfactory dental, mental health and medical care, electrical hazards, plumbing problems and ventilation failings. The office of Thomas J. Dart, the Cook County sheriff since late 2006, issued a statement on Thursday pledging to work with federal authorities on improvements, but also taking strong issue with elements of the report. Most notably, the statement said, many improvements have been put into place -- before and after federal investigators visited the jail in 2007. "The report often relies on inflammatory language and draws conclusions based on anecdotes and hearsay from inmates," the statement said, adding that the "allegations of systematic violations of civil rights at the jail are categorically rejected by the sheriff's office." In a separate statement, the office of Todd H. Stroger, president of the Cook County Board, said that the county had in recent years provided financing for more correctional officers, and that its facilities and maintenance workers had finished 40,000 "work orders" at the jail in the past year. The county's health bureau "continues to work diligently to provide quality medical care for the inmates," it said. Among causes of the jail's troubles, the report pointed to inadequate staffing (3,800 sworn officers and civilians work there), crowding, inadequate policies and procedures, insufficient supervision and what Mr. Fitzgerald called a culture of abuse. In one case, investigators said, an inmate had to be hospitalized and placed on a ventilator after being beaten by several officers. "There's clearly examples of corrections officers in organized groups beating inmates to retaliate for verbal abuse, and people going to the hospital for it," Mr. Fitzgerald said. "And that's got to stop." Violence among the inmates, too, is prevalent, investigators found. In less than two months in 2006, seven knife fights caused serious injuries to some 33 inmates and seven jail workers. One inmate died. And investigators identified "numerous instances" in which it said the county's failure to handle medical treatment properly "likely contributed to preventable deaths, amputation, hospitalizations and unnecessary harm." Among the cases they cited was that of an H.I.V.-positive woman who complained of shortness of breath and a cough, and was then found to have an abnormal X-ray. Despite the test, the woman received no follow-up care, the investigators said, and died in early 2006. Also visit our "Prison & Police Abuse" section. |
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