In 1919, after the State Board of Public Charities had labored fifty
years to reform the county jails, the State Department of Public
Welfare made a study of the county jails of Illinois. This report
contained the following statement:
“Illinois has 20 county jails which maybe classified as good;
19 as fair; 41 as very poor or bad; 21 as unfit for use. Except
for the high standard of cleanliness of the women’s department,
it is difficult to find any good points about the Cook County
Jail.... It is recognized as an insanitary, dark, overcrowded
institution that is a disgrace to Cook County.... They [the
prisoners] are locked in their cells from 11.30 in the morning
to 3.30 in the afternoon. There are two or three men in each
small cell (six by nine feet and eight feet high). It is
impossible to distribute the men according to their habits of
cleanliness or decency. Twenty hours out of each twenty-four
must be spent locked in the insanitary, dirty, crowded cell.
All meals are served to the men in their cells. The time for
exercise, 9.30-11.30 A. M. and 3.30-5.30 P. M., they stand
or walk around or sit down on the floor of the ‘bull pen’ or
‘exercise corridor.’ In the ‘old jail’ this ‘pen’ includes all
the floor space of the cell house not occupied by the cell
block. It is a big room swarming with men. In the departments
of the ‘new’ it is the corridor into which the cells open. The
cells are kept locked during the four exercise hours. There
are no seats or benches in the ‘bull pens.’ In all departments
the pens are crowded during the four ‘exercise’ hours.... Cook
County does not furnish jail clothes for prisoners. They have
access to laundry tubs once a week. Prisoners wash their own
clothes.... Those who do not [have changes of clothing] manage
the best way they can. They may wash their clothes, dry them,
and put them on again; they may also borrow from cell mates....
There are only 14 shower baths, exclusive of the receiving
ward, for all the men prisoners ... (population on the day of
inspection, 546).
“One part of the floor space on the dark side of main cell
house of the old jail is screened off for a hospital ward.
There are no windows in this hospital. The air comes from the
‘old jail.’ It is lighted always by electric light.... The
large airy hospital on the eighth floor of the ‘new jail’ is
used only for special cases.”
The Committee has retained as adviser with reference to the jail
problem Dr. George W. Kirchwey, of New York, formerly Dean of Columbia
University Law School, ex-warden of Sing Sing Prison, and a leading
expert in penology. He finds all of the evils above mentioned and
many others--especially that prisoners are inevitably degenerated in
body and soul by the present conditions; that the Cook County Jail,
like most county jails, instead of being a preventive, is a prolific
source of crime; and that the county bears a heavy burden of expense in
detaining prisoners who might better be at large, as is shown by the
fact that in many cases, after several months’ detention in the county
jail, the prisoner is released by order of the State’s Attorney, either
because he is found to be innocent or for lack of sufficient evidence
to convict. He finds also that many prisoners are held because they
cannot give bail who might safely be at large pending trial, without
damage to the community.