(See the front-page article in the Chicago Tribune this morning: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/northnorthwest/ct-met-winnetka-murder-0407-20100407,0,618397.story )
Growing up on the North Shore in suburban Cook County with such a wonderful family, excellent education, and interesting opportunities, I imagined many things for my life. But never in my wildest dreams could I have envisioned that three members of my family would one day be murdered by a "thrill"-seeking teenage neighbor, and the devastation and dramatic change that would bring to us.
I won't retell the story of this horrific crime here -- it is widely available on the Internet. But this life-altering tragedy is where the arc of history actually begins that has resulted in my running for the Cook County Board now, twenty years later.
In the aftermath of this watershed event, I was profoundly moved by my sister's dying message of love -- words that are with me as strongly today as they were twenty years ago. I have dedicated my life since that time to honoring their memory, and I have worked as hard as I could to make sure that no family ever has to go through what ours did.
To that end, I have devoted much time since Nancy, Richard, and the baby's murder to helping troubled youth, supporting victims and advancing their rights, advocating for violence prevention, working to rehabilitate offenders and hold them accountable, creating opportunities for restorative justice, reforming the criminal justice system, and working with law enforcement to reduce crime.
The more time I've spent with those issues, the more I've realized the far-reaching and horrific toll of violent crime. And the more expertise I've acquired, the more encouraged I have been to realize that there is much we can do to make our communities safer.
The far northern and northwest suburbs of Cook County that I am seeking to represent on the County Board are, for the most part, safer and more comfortable places to live in. People choose to live here in this quality of life in large part because local police departments are able to work with more well-resourced communities to keep violent crime relatively low.
But what happens to the south of us is a daily reality of life in a major urban area. Only sometimes will it appear that this kind of violence bleeds over into our neighborhoods, so it may not feel like a top priority to focus on when we contemplate how Cook County should be reformed. But the reality is that crime is all around us, and it represents a real, costly, and significant issue everywhere in our nation: suburbs, rural areas, and cities.
There is the obvious "cost" to families like mine when crime hits us, or when violence changes our lives forever.
But even for families not directly affected by the violence, it is important to note that we are all paying a very high price for it. All of us.
A top area of concern that residents of the 14th District share with me as I walk door to door is the high cost of living in Cook County. But many I speak to are less aware that the criminal justice system is the largest single item in the Cook County budget.
Almost half of Cook County's over $3 billion budget goes to running the county's criminal justice system: the courts, the sheriffs, the judges, the prosecutors and defense attorneys, the jail, the guards, the probation officers, the clerks, the programs, etc.
And much of the second-largest budget item for taxpayers -- the public health care system, which makes up about a third of the Cook County budget -- is also significantly impacted by crime. The estimated cost per shooting death to Cook County taxpayers is $400,000. And statistically for every shooting death, there are at least two more people who survive with injuries. Medical care for trauma is extremely expensive, and often these victims do not have health insurance. In our area, 80% of all violent crime is enabled by a gun. And we are paying for it.
Crime is very, very costly.
It costs families in pain, and it costs the rest of the residents who have to pay for the aftermath.
And while violent crime rates have been falling significantly since the 1980s, in Illinois and nationwide, the costs of crime are going up dramatically.
The focus in the quest for solutions to this truly complex problem of crime can be summed up in one word: Prevention. It costs far less to prevent a crime than to deal with its aftermath.
Prevention works.
Prevention is smart, efficient, cost-effective, and practical. Crime prevention is also the right thing to do -- it is moral and helpful, and it advances our quality of life.
I was encouraged to run for the Cook County Board because my nationally recognized expertise in crime prevention, criminal justice, and public safety issues represents an important opportunity to bring needed changes to the largest single area of Cook County government -- the criminal justice system. I will bring effective ideas to the table about how to cut the high cost, both personal and financial, of crime. I am grateful that there is such an intersection between my professional knowledge and experience and a personal passion for public policy reform in this high-priority area.
The list of specific reforms I will bring to the table are too long for one blog, so look for future posts with more details about how to be SMART ON CRIME. But as an example, if we approach the crime problem from a budgetary point of view, the Cook County Jail is one area where specific cost savings can be realized.
On any given day, there are about 10,000 inmates in the jail awaiting various legal proceedings. A jail is usually not a place where sentences of the already convicted are served; prisons serve that purpose. Generally, jails are holding places for those not yet convicted. Some estimates are that about half of those incarcerated at Cook County Jail are there for charges related to non-violent crimes.
Most offenders have a chance to post bail and return to their communities while they await adjudication, but many cannot afford to post this bail. So they sit in Cook County Jail. Holding one person for one day at the jail costs taxpayers about $100.
Five thousand people come and go each day in the jail. Ankle-bracelet home monitoring costs only 10% of what incarceration costs. Boot camp alternative programs are far more statistically effective in reducing recidivism. Drug treatment programs, job training, literacy education, and community service to make restitution to victims and to the community have been proven, over and over, to really work.
We could potentially cut the cost of the nation's largest single-site jail by almost half, and without endangering the community in any way. In fact, such programs would help the community function better. And they would save money and lives.
But what must be done extremely carefully is the work to sort out those offenders who represent a real danger to public safety from those who do not. No single issue has been more of concern to me in recent years than this one. Last year I was appointed as an advisor to the United States Sentencing Commission. We work regularly at defining these offender characteristics and setting up standards for offender accountability.
And I have fought and won hard battles several times in Springfield, Washington D.C., and here in Cook County against forces that would endanger the public by pushing for premature release of violent and dangerous felons. Statistics and patterns are clear -- violent offenders have a high rate of recidivism. Re-offending not only creates more victims, but it also begins the high cost all over again of running offenders through the entire process of investigation, arrest, trial, and incarceration.
We can and must do a better job of identifying those offenders who must be incarcerated, versus those who can best be treated in alternative programs that will restore their social productiveness.
My opponent, the incumbent Commissioner from the 14th District, is absent on this biggest of all issues in Cook County government.
I will write soon about another very important program that I have volunteered in for over ten years with the Cook County Juvenile Probation Department. That program helps victims and dramatically reduces repeat offenses by youth.
I have spent most of my advocacy and activism time advancing what I have learned from listening to law enforcement. Both as a teacher and as a victim activist, I have been blessed with opportunities to travel nationally and glean best practices in prevention from around the nation.
The following areas for reform have tremendous potential for successful reduction of costly crime, yet they have not been developed to the degree that they should have:
- More and better regional and inter-municipal sharing of illegal gun trafficking and criminal network information.
- Better identification and treatment of mentally unstable and violence-prone individuals before they commit crimes.
- Utilizing the federal Project Exile program wherever possible.
- Greatly expanded application of the CeaseFire program in Cook County -- statistically proven to dramatically reduce violent crime on the specific streets where it is in place.
- Full reinstatement and greater expansion of the CIP/VIP program for juvenile offenders (a program cut by Todd Stroger, with support from the current Commissioner for the 14th District.)
- Careful identification through offender characteristics of potential sociopaths, and more careful sorting of those requiring incarceration versus programming.
- Full use of trained and expert volunteer talent that is available and in place but not being utilized in Cook County Jail for literacy training, education for success after release, and presentations to offenders on the impact of crime.
- Universal background checks on every gun transfer, limiting bulk purchases of weapons intended for trafficking, and limiting firepower to non-military levels.
- Investment in inexpensive rehabilitation and education, rather than in expensive incarceration with no emphasis on rehabilitation that then results in more expensive recidivism.
- Requirements for community service and victim restitution in every case passing through the Cook County criminal courts.
- Massive and universal programming in schools on violence and crime prevention.
- Expansion of Sheriff Dart's Boot Camp Program.
- Expanded restorative justice programming between victims and offenders.
And there is so much more that we can do. I am looking forward to getting to work on this. I know it will save us money and improve life in our communities. For my family personally, it will honor my murdered sister, her husband, and their baby to get this done.
UPDATE:
May 28, 2010 The United States Justice Department released a study of felony prosecutions in the top 39 counties across the nation. The results confirm my position. Cook County ranks by far highest in the nation in felony prosecutions of non-violent drug offenders and at the absolute bottom of prosecutions for violent felonies. Read an excellent analysis at http://www.examiner.com/x-47639-Chicago-City-Buzz-Examiner~y2010m5d28-Cook-County-is-first-in-felony-drug-charges
