Crime & Law
Cook County’s Top Prosecutor Defends Tougher Pretrial Detention Policy
At her swearing-in ceremony six months ago, Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke promised a tougher approach to tackling violent crime.
Key to that approach has been asking her prosecutors to seek pretrial detention for more suspects — especially those charged with felony firearm cases and other violent crimes.
Since Burke took office, the population of Cook County Jail has grown from around 5,200 at the end of predecessor Kim Foxx’s term to just under 5,800 now.
But critics say violent crime was already trending down in the city and the country — and question the need for Burke’s tougher approach to crime.
In an interview on “Chicago Tonight,” Burke defended her push for more pretrial detention and noted “significant problems” with the county’s electronic monitoring system.
Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart recently ended his department’s decades-long involvement in electronic monitoring, leaving sole responsibility for managing those cases with Chief Judge Tim Evans.
That move has created additional issues.
“The problem is pretrial officers within the chief justice’s office do not have arrest authority,” said Burke. “So if someone cuts off their band or goes AWOL on electronic monitoring, those pretrial officers do not have the authority to go and arrest someone. They don’t have the authority to come and ask for an arrest warrant. You need law enforcement personnel to do that.”
Burke noted that there are currently “40 to 50 people that are charged with murder or attempted murder on electronic monitoring.”
“Those are not appropriate charges for electronic monitoring,” Burke said. “My job is to make sure that people who are a danger to the public, we do everything we can to detain them. If someone is not a danger to the public we are not asking for detention. If someone is carrying a machine gun or a gun with a switch converting it into an automatic weapon, they present a danger to the public and in those cases we seek detention.”
Burke said her office is also seeking detention for people who commit other kinds of violent crime, including on Chicago Transit Authority buses and trains.
“We need to have a safe public transportation system and we do not have that,” said Burke. “We can send a very strong deterrent message by asking for detention and jail time when someone presents a danger to the public.”
In an effort to ensure access to reproductive health care services, Burke recently announced the creation of a new Choice Protection Unit to prevent people from interfering with women’s right to access reproductive care — including abortion services. She also touted her backing for state legislation that would treat attacks on abortion clinics as terrorism.
“We’ve had an 80% increase in women coming to Illinois from other states in order to get reproductive health services,” said Burke. “With that is going to be people who want to interfere with women exercising their right to reproductive health, so we need to be ready for it. … (The creation of the new unit) sends a very strong message that we take this very seriously in Cook County and we will prosecute anyone who is interfering with a woman by engaging in criminal conduct.”
