All Eyes on Reform: How Criminal Justice is Changing in Cook County

Juliana Stratton is the Executive Director of the Cook County Justice Advisory Council (JAC), whose mission is to pursue Cook Country President Preckwinkle’s public safety and criminal justice reform agenda. She was previously the principal owner of JDS Mediation Services, Inc. and has sat on alternative dispute resolution panels for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, Cook County Mandatory Arbitration, and the Illinois Department of Human Rights. Juliana has served with the City of Chicago both as a Deputy Hearing Commissioner for the Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection and as Administrative Law Judge for the Department of Administrative Hearings. She earned a BS in Broadcast Journalism from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a JD from DePaul University College of Law.

Since Cook Country Board President Preckwinkle appointed you as the Executive Director of the Justice Advisory Council two years ago with the mission of reducing recidivism, providing a fair judicial system, and promoting public safety, what do you see as your main accomplishments so far?

We have four public safety goals that the president has set forth as priorities in her administration: first of all, to reduce the populations at the Cook County Jail and the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center (JTDC); secondly, to do so in a way that preserves public safety. So when we look at reducing the population at those two institutions, the primary focus is to make sure that we are getting adequate information to judges and improving that flow of information so that we are not over relying on pretrial detention for those that are charged with nonviolent offenses. Sometimes when people hear the idea of reducing the population at a jail or detention center, it brings to mind the questions: What about public safety? What about our communities, especially in this climate of violence? The focus is really to look at those who would not be a threat to public safety, would not be a flight risk, and see if they could be better served through community-based alternatives to detention. The third goal is promote successful reintegration into communities, and finally, to ensure fair and equitable access to justice.

When we look at the major accomplishments, I would break it down into looking at it from the lens of those four goals. As it relates to the jail, one of the things I most appreciate about President Preckwinkle is that she has really brought this issue, from both a social justice standpoint as well as a fiscal responsibility standpoint, of how we are keeping too many people detained at the jail for far too long. Last year, the Justice Advisory Council, under the leadership of Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke, conducted a six-month study of bond court. I think one of the main accomplishments through that study was that we listened to all of the various stakeholders – people that are involved with the bond court process at every stage. We also talked to individuals who had actually gone through bond court as defendants. We identified through those conversations a number of improvements that can be made to the system, and we’ve been working on those ever since.

One of the improvements was to the space where bond court interviews take place – interviews by the public defender and interviews by the pretrial services department. Previously, there was a space that unfortunately was called the bullpen where defendants were crowded in. Their attorney would come and would have to yell out questions to them through the bars of that pen. There was no privacy. There was no ability to have a real meaningful conversation. So one of things that the president did as a result of our bond court study was to invest money into the pretrial interview space so that now there are individual interview carrels where defendants can talk to their counsel, they can talk to pretrial services. They do so with privacy and, quite frankly, in a more humane way.

Also coming out of that bond court study was the Motion to Reconsider Call. What we found was that there were people who remained in the jail after their bond was set by the judge, simply because they couldn’t afford their bail amount. So a Motion to Reconsider Call was instituted, which meant that after 24 to 48 hours, if people remained in the jail, the public defender would be notified, so that he or she could go back before the judge to make a motion that the judge reconsider the bond amount. We invested in some additional public defenders and what we call “backlog clearance specialists,” who are independent contractors who came in to help get additional information about these individuals that might be helpful for the judge.

One of the things that the president noted very early on is that bond court decisions take place very quickly, often in 30 seconds or less. So the idea was, how can we provide more information to the judges about how the person is connected to the community? Are they in school? Do they have a job? Are they affiliated with some sort of faith-based institution? Whatever it might be to show that there are some mitigating factors that would warrant them not lingering in the jail for an extended period of time, and would be better served by staying connected to their families and their communities. We have seen people’s bonds get reduced, and that has been something that we’re very proud of. And we recently were awarded a $450,000 grant from the MacArthur Foundation to expand the program and include an evaluation component.

Since the Cook County Sheriff, the Chief Judge, and the Chicago Police Department all operate as autonomous components that produce the large Cook County Jail population, what can your office and President Preckwinkle feasibly do to solve this issue and what are some of the struggles you face?

We have separately elected officials in Cook County. Outside of the President’s Office, in terms of the criminal justice system, there is the State’s Attorney, the Public Defender, the Clerk of the Court, the judges, the Office of the Chief Judge, and the Sheriff. Primarily, what we have attempted to do is to identify ways to collaborate. None of these changes can really take place unilaterally, by just one department doing something.

For example, very early on the president established a Performance Management process called STAR: Set Targets, Achieve Results. What that process does is it looks at budgetary commitments and the types of initiatives that the president would like to see take place to further the criminal justice reform agenda. All of the public safety stakeholders have participated in the STAR performance management process, and all of them agreed that reducing the population at the jail, for example, was a common goal.

What happens after that is our office – often as a convener, often as a participant – makes sure that as we move forward on some of these initiatives, that all of the various stakeholders are at the table. That’s primarily what our role is, and then through the STAR process and through the budget process, asking the questions as to whether we are really providing a fair and equitable justice system in a way that shows that we are good stewards of the tax payers’ funds.

What about the Chicago Police Department and other local police departments that play such a large role through their policing strategies to bring people into the jail? Are you able to have any impact there, or is that one area that’s out of your hands?

Clearly law enforcement, as it relates to the City of Chicago, does not fall under the purview of Cook County and the President’s Office, but there have been opportunities to work with the City of Chicago on public safety issues. Very early on, President Preckwinkle and Mayor Emanuel identified several different areas for collaboration. They said, “we share a building, we share the fifth floor, but there are some areas where we can do better at collaborating.” That had not been done to this degree before their administrations.

One of those areas was public safety, and out of the public safety collaboration grew the Community Anti-Violence and Restoration Effort (CARE). We spent about 18 months working with a cross section of stakeholders including faith-based organizations, community-based organizations, the philanthropic community, the business community, as well as city, county, and state level government. The idea was to identify ways that we could help not only reduce violence in the city, but also to help stabilize communities. We saw it going hand-in-hand, that you cannot address violence without looking at communities that needed to be stabilized.

We’ve been working on that now for over two years, and 11 community leadership teams were established under CARE in 11 communities within the city limits that experience twice the average rate of violent crime. We have recently helped to establish suburban CARE teams, one in the southern suburbs and one in the western suburbs. It’s an opportunity to say that even though the city might be responsible for the Chicago Police Department and the county is responsible for the jail and the JTDC, we have to keep the lines of communication open so that we can raise the concerns as to how one affects the other. We’ve been able to do that to some extent, but again, the president does not control what happens with the Chicago Police Department.

With the recent decision that New York stop-and-frisks are a violation of rights and Attorney General Eric Holder calling for a change to federal mandatory minimums for nonviolent drug offenses, are these signs that the tide is changing in terms of justice reform? And are there any other policies that you hope may be changed in the future?

First of all, I think we’ve seen in recent years that the tide is changing. We certainly support what Attorney General Holder has announced, but if we look nationally, there were already many states that had taken the initiatives to reduce the overreliance on detention and pretrial detention. There have been efforts in prison reform, and there have been efforts to really look at community-based corrections and how we can do more to strengthen our communities. I think that people have seen the devastating effects of mass incarceration, particularly on urban communities.

Yes, the tide is changing. I think we see members of both sides of the aisle saying, whether it’s from a social justice standpoint or a fiscal responsibility standpoint, we’re spending way too much money on incarceration, and the return on our investment is not very good. We’re seeing high recidivism rates and people just sort of cycling through the system. The recognition has been that we need to do something better. We need to do something that will help people stay on the right path, to be able to successfully reengage in their communities, and be productive citizens.

So I see that as being the case, but at the same time, there is a very real need to make sure that we focus on public safety. We look at just what has happened in terms of the violence that we’ve experienced in Chicago. We wake up in the morning and see the headlines about five people shot in Uptown, this incident here, and this charge for a seven-year-old getting shot. You see these stories over and over, so there’s a recognition that people want to be safe. We want our children to grow up in neighborhoods that are safe. What we really want to see, is a real focus on vigorous prosecution of those that are dangerous, those that are threats to our community and threats to public safety, and those people that are violent should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and go to prison.

Unfortunately what happens is that there are a lot of other people that get swept up into the system, having been charged with nonviolent offenses. We have to do a better job of making sure that, number one, we are advocating for more community-based alternatives to detention for that population so they can get services they need whether it be substance abuse treatment, mental health treatment, or jobs training and skills training. But we also have to make sure at the same time that there are organizations that have the capacity to provide such services.

In terms of policy, right now what we are looking at is the length of stay. I mentioned bond court earlier, because that is sort of the gateway to the jail, and we want to see fewer people go through that gate and enter the jail, but instead be given bond amounts that they can actually afford and return to communities while they’re awaiting trial when they’re not a flight risk or a risk to community. We want to focus in the coming months on why it is taking so much longer for cases to be disposed of in Cook County. The data shows that the length of stay in the jail is about 10 days longer than it was in 2007. So when you have more people coming into the jail and lengthening the time that they are at the jail, that’s where you see the increase in the population. We’ll be working with the various stakeholders and reviewing the data to really have a good understanding of why that is the case and what we can do together to reduce those stays

Is there any other work being done at the JAC that you’d like to highlight?

We have just hosted our third Barriers to Reentry Forum. Because one of President Preckwinkle’s goals is to support successful reintegration into communities, one of the things we had to do is to find out what those barriers to returning citizens are after they leave the jail or the JTDC. We’ve hosted these forums, one in the city of Chicago, one in the southern suburbs, and we just hosted one in the western suburbs. That was an opportunity to hear from service providers, and what we’ve done is moved from just understanding the barriers to identifying some of the solutions. I believe after those three sessions, we now have a common agenda, and one of those items that were identified for our next steps is how do we help reentry service providers to build their capacity? Because if we want to find alternatives to detention, then we have to know what alternatives exist. Do they have the capacity to receive these individuals? A lot of them told us that there are barriers to obtaining grant funds because they are smaller organizations. That was an example of how we really took one of the president’s goals and identified that government does many things well, but when it comes to best serving the needs of community, government must work in partnership with those that are in the community and in the trenches doing the work.

When we talk about how do we help build community capacity and how do we invest in communities, the JAC was able to award $400,000 this year in recidivism reduction grants. That’s five $80,000 grants to organizations that are working with either youth exiting detention or adults exiting the jail. We’ve really been able to promote collaboration between organizations to do that work. We also worked with the newly established Violence Prevention, Intervention, and Reduction Advisory Committee that was established through the last budget session. We awarded $1.9 million in violence prevention grants. So again, it just reaffirms the president’s commitment to not only suggest that we should have community-based alternatives and that public safety is a priority, but she has really made sure that we can invest in those efforts as well, to make sure that communities have the resources they need to address these big issues.

Finally, I wanted to mention the Juvenile Temporary Detention Center population reduction. When the president first set a goal of reducing that population, she wanted to see it go from about 300 to 250. We were able to accomplish that goal by, again, investing in alternatives to detention and working collaboratively with the various stakeholders in the juvenile justice system in Cook County. Over the last year, Chicago has dealt with quite a bit of violence and issues relating to violence and we have seen that population creep up some. Recent legislation was just passed in the state legislature to raise the age of juvenile court jurisdiction to 17. So now 17-year-olds charged with felonies will be in the juvenile court system. While we expect the population to be impacted at the JTDC, we are working with the Annie Casey Foundation and the other juvenile justice stakeholders right now to make sure we understand what that impact might be, how to best manage the population, and how to look for alternatives for that population as well.

Feature Photo: cc/(Stefano Corso)