Brad Sandefur

Candidate Q&A

Why are you running? 

To put law-abiding American Cook County citizens ahead of criminals, stop the release of dangerous criminals back onto the street without their ever having seen the inside of the jail, and to stop the continuing political reward system.

What skills or experience do you have that make you particularly suited to this position?

I have 36 years with the Sheriff’s department: 30 years as a sergeant, and 17 as a shift commander. I am a certified police officer, correctional officer, tactical officer, and academy instructor. I have trained with the FBI, the Secret Service, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons. I served in the United States Marine Corps. I hold a Master’s degree in Criminal Justice/Forensic Psychology from Liberty University. I have experience working with the mentally ill and mentally challenged. This affliction is often a huge factor in criminal activity. I would be the first Sheriff who actually worked for the sheriff’s department from the ground up. 

What does this office do well, and what needs fixing?  

Over the last several years, the department has improved its community outreach efforts, teaming with several nongovernmental organizations to offer addiction treatment, very limited job training, and some mental health treatment. The department is lacking in life skills training, anger management control, and programs that might change environments that statistically show a propensity for increasing one’s likelihood to become involved in criminal or anti-social behaviors. However, programs to keep people with mental health issues, such as low IQ, autism, or schizophrenia, from getting arrested or going to jail, where they are particularly vulnerable, and will not do well, are seriously lacking. The idea is that they never get an arrest record. They would go from a police encounter to a mental health program, with a stop-off before a judge for verification. This is a simplistic explanation, but it conveys the general idea.

Various department sections put uniformed deputies in marked police vehicles on the street daily. Yet they restrict the actions these deputies are permitted to take. For example, if these deputies spot a dangerous driver, say driving at 100mph on the shoulder of the road, they are not permitted to attempt a traffic stop. They are not trained in arrest procedures, vehicle pursuits, or traffic stops. They do not carry ticket books. How does this look to the public that only sees the police taking no action to stop a public safety threat?

Individuals often turn themselves in at the jail’s main entrance for outstanding warrants. There are no arrest processing stations at the jail. Deputies assigned to the jail are not trained in arrest procedures, nor do they have a ‘court key’ to assign a court date. A sheriff’s police unit is expected to leave its assigned patrol area to take the subject to the Sheriff’s police station, process the subject, then get the subject to the courthouse so the subject can be placed on a sheriff’s transportation bus to be sent back to the jail so they can be sent back to court the next day to see a judge. Does anyone hear circus music yet?

The department offers lots of training. Unfortunately, to save money, most of the training is done online with no hands-on practicals. The State-required 40 hours of in-service training per year has been reduced to 24 hours of in-person training. Online training comprises the remaining 16 hours. This is done to save money. 
Sworn staff morale is at an all-time low due to their treatment and lack of support when engaged in their duties, among other issues. For example, minimum required staffing levels are much lower than they should be to reduce overtime. This serves only to put staff at higher risk and has resulted in an all-time high number of duty injuries. General discipline is lacking.

The department purchases subpar vehicles that seemingly spend more time down for repairs than in service. This creates severe vehicle shortages for the sheriff’s police and the Transportation unit, among others. The vehicles purchased are often chosen without consulting the staff that uses them. Vehicles are not properly secured for transporting suspects or prisoners.

The department is very good at establishing detailed policies and procedures. Unfortunately, they are not enforced and are often impractical. Other protocols have been relaxed to increase employment eligibility pools or to retain new hires. This increases the danger to other staff members. Worse yet, the department is misusing the Brady Doctrine, then refusing to promote anyone who has been so labeled, while neither informing the deputy that they have been so labeled, nor ever giving the deputy a due process hearing on the allegations, even if they continue to work for the department. The allegations are often trivial or did not occur as the department claims. The department currently fires more people than it hires. The firings are often unnecessary.

The department currently uses trained, certified law enforcement officers for janitorial duties in some departmental sections. This is a waste of training and reduces the available pool of qualified deputies to fill sworn staff shortages. Sworn personnel, including supervisors, are placed in roles that could be filled by civilian staff, freeing up supervisors and creating promotional opportunities for civilian staff, thereby making it more attractive for civilian staff to remain with the department, reducing civilian staff shortages.

The department created a fairly dependable system for discharging accused individuals from jail. However, necessary paperwork is often not received, is misplaced, or is simply lost. The discharge process is excessively long, and people are often released into dangerously cold weather in the early hours when no public transportation is available.
Sheriff’s police and all sworn department sections receive de-escalation training. Unfortunately, we often see incidents where an officer unnecessarily escalates a situation. More training, practicals, and supervision are needed to reduce unnecessary escalations. 

Vermin and roaches are rampant within the jail. Better pest control is vital, and in that same venue, repair requests are slow to be fulfilled, and equipment replacement requests are often slow or ignored, especially when requesting that things such as broken desks or chairs be replaced.

What is the most pressing issue facing your constituents and how do you plan on addressing it? 

The most pressing issue in Cook County is the high crime rate. The recently publicized false reporting of crime data to make it appear that crime is down has given a false sense of increased safety to the public. There is no single solution to reducing crime. Eliminating crime will never happen, so reduction is the achievable goal.

Crime can be reduced through several initiatives. I believe we should stop incarcerating those suffering from low-functioning autism, or higher-functioning autism when combined with other mental health challenges. Those sufferers belong in residential treatment programs. Jail or prison will only worsen their condition as they are easily manipulated and taken advantage of in both the outside world, and most certainly in an incarceration setting. For similar reasons, those with low IQ’s should also be included. Of course, this would be judged on a case-by-case basis. However, we need to get away from the ‘everyone must pay’ mindset. Those who genuinely cannot process information or sensory input within a reasonable time frame should not be punished for something that is truly beyond their ability to control.

I would work to change environments that have statistically proven to increase one’s propensity to become involved in criminal activity. For example, fatherless homes or poor living conditions, or conditions that may increase someone becoming a target of bullying, such as identifying learning difficulties or those who learn differently, such as a visual learner as opposed to an auditory learner, and tailoring an education program specific to the learning style. This would be very similar to Individual Education Plans (IEPs) currently used for students with mental health issues that affect behavior or motor skills, such as autism, ADHD, or Down’s syndrome. This, hopefully, will reduce frustration and self-doubt, incentivizing the affected individual to remain in school, reducing the likelihood of becoming entangled in gangs or criminal activity.

I will work with legislators to equalize education settings for regular students. If everyone has equal access to equipment, books, air conditioning, computers, qualified teachers, counselors, and aides, then we begin to change environments. I believe we can do this by equalizing funding distribution. Rather than giving different funding levels based on an area’s median income (tax base) as is the current unbalanced system, put the school tax dollars into a pool and then distribute an equal amount per student to every school.

Approximately 40% of accused offenders have a mental health issue, often combined with an addiction issue. The key is to increase mental health treatment availability, particularly residential treatments. We should also increase the length of addiction treatment programs. Few people are cured of an addiction in thirty days.

Economic opportunity can be increased through job training, and training in life skills, self-care, anger management, interview skills, illiteracy reduction, and writing skills. Economic opportunity can be improved for small businesses through support programs, such as business advisors, qualified risk assessors, etc., to help ensure an enterprising person does not select a low success probability enterprise, at least not until they have an established, successful enterprise to fall back on.

Work with the legislature to offer grants to people who need home repairs in run-down or economically challenged areas but cannot afford them. In other words, I believe that the ‘broken windows’ theory is valid. If we can stop an area from looking vulnerable and ostracized or ignored, I believe we can increase resident pride in the area and reduce its ‘victimizable’ appearance. If someone is truly poor, a loan will only make things more difficult. We need grants.
Finally, we must work on breaking up gangs of any type, be it street gangs, bike gangs, mob gangs, cartels, etc., by working to reduce their perceived appeal and the imagined rewards and ‘coolness’ of belonging to such criminal organizations.

Is there a major policy initiative or financial issue you will look to tackle in the next year? 

My major initiatives will be:

1. To stop political reward hiring and avoid hiring people lacking law enforcement experience to lead law enforcement units or agencies, as has been the case with the current administration. For example, I would not hire a radio disc jockey with no known experience to lead a specialized police unit because he/she always said nice things about me on the air.
2. Work to stop the media attacks on law enforcement, the misinterpretations of our Constitution, and make working in law enforcement appealing again to get our staffing numbers back to a viable level. This would increase public safety, reduce costs, and allow us to develop and staff more programs.

If you are elected, what would the end of a successful four-year term look like for you?    

Increased, qualified staffing levels, and the staff decide to stay with the department. Then, if my staff and I can increase the trust, faith, cooperation of and with the public, and the public’s belief in our legitimacy, reduce crime and the number of mentally ill/challenged being incarcerated, improve employee morale, more efficiently utilize tax dollars to reduce our budgetary needs, while also initiating ideas and programs I have not yet presented, then it will have been a successful term.

What specific steps would you take to ensure your office is accessible and responsive?

I can only say that the department will be as transparent as the law will allow, while balancing the protection of alleged victims/witnesses, staff, those incarcerated, facility security, and maintaining the integrity of any ongoing investigations.