The Cook County Jail, located on in South Lawndale,

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...

, is operated by the

Sheriff A sheriff is a government official, with varying duties, existing in some countries with historical ties to England where the office originated. There is an analogous, although independently developed, office in Iceland, the , which is common ...

Cook County Cook County is the most populous county in the U.S. state of Illinois and the second-most-populous county in the United States, after Los Angeles County, California. More than 40 percent of all residents of Illinois live within Cook County. ...

. It is sometimes referred to as ''California'' or ''Hotel California'', as its address is on California Avenue. A city jail has existed on this site since after the

Great Chicago Fire The Great Chicago Fire was a conflagration that burned in the American city of Chicago, Illinois during October 8–10, 1871. The fire killed approximately 300 people, destroyed roughly of the city including over 17,000 structures, and left mor ...

of 1871, but major County prisoners were not generally collocated here until closure of the old Hubbard Street Criminal Court Building and jail in 1929. Since then, a 1920s neoclassical and

art deco Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...

courthouse for the criminal division of the

Cook County Circuit Court The Circuit Court of Cook County is the largest of the 25 Illinois circuit courts, circuit courts (trial courts of original jurisdiction, original and general jurisdiction) in the judiciary of Illinois as well as one of the largest unified cour ...

has operated at the South Lawndale complex. As of 2017, Cook County operated the third-largest jail system in the United States by inmate population (after the

Los Angeles County Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles and sometimes abbreviated as LA County, is the most populous county in the United States, with 9,663,345 residents estimated in 2023. Its population is greater than that of 40 individua ...

and New York City jail systems). The jail has held several well-known and infamous criminals, including

Al Capone Alphonse Gabriel Capone ( ; ; January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947), sometimes known by the nickname "Scarface", was an American organized crime, gangster and businessman who attained notoriety during the Prohibition era as the co-foun ...

, Tony Accardo,

Frank Nitti Frank Ralph Nitto (born Francesco Raffaele Nitto, ; January 27, 1886 – March 19, 1943), known as Frank Nitti, was an Italian-American organized crime figure based in Chicago. The bodyguard of Al Capone, Nitti was in charge of all money flowing ...

Larry Hoover Larry Hoover Sr. (born November 30, 1950)"Larry Hoover"
''Biography.com''. Retrieved 18 April 2019.

, Jordan Tate, Jeff Fort,

Richard Speck Richard Benjamin Speck (December 6, 1941 – December 5, 1991) was an American mass murderer who killed eight student nurses in their South Deering, Chicago, residence via stabbing, strangulation, strangling, slashing their throats, or a combina ...

, John Wayne Gacy and the Chicago Seven. Earlier such jails have held other prisoners, including those involving the

Haymarket Affair The Haymarket affair, also known as the Haymarket massacre, the Haymarket riot, the Haymarket Square riot, or the Haymarket Incident, was the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration on May 4, 1886 at Haymarket Square (C ...

. It was one of three sites in which executions were carried out by electrocution in Illinois. Between 1928 and 1962, the

electric chair The electric chair is a specialized device used for capital punishment through electrocution. The condemned is strapped to a custom wooden chair and electrocuted via electrodes attached to the head and leg. Alfred P. Southwick, a Buffalo, New Yo ...

was used 67 times at the jail, including the state's last electrocution, that of James Duke, on August 24, 1962. The state's other electrocutions were later carried out at the Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill and at the Menard Correctional Center in

Chester Chester is a cathedral city in Cheshire, England, on the River Dee, Wales, River Dee, close to the England–Wales border. With a built-up area population of 92,760 in 2021, it is the most populous settlement in the borough of Cheshire West an ...

, until the state abolished their death penalty in 2011.

History

19th and 20th century

In the mid-to-late-1800s suspects in serious criminal matters were held at the site of the Cook County Criminal Court Building on Hubbard Street in a jail attached to the courthouse (the jail house was on the same block, in back of the courthouse, and is sometimes identified by reference to the corner of "Dearborn and Illinois" Streets). A separate short-stay city jail called the "Bridewell" on Polk Street, officially the House of Correction, housed less serious offenders from within the city. The city Bridewell moved to the site of the present jail complex at 29th and California in 1871 (at the time of the

) but the county's serious alleged offenders did not generally move there until the 1920s. When the two facilities began to be located together, they first gained the reputation as the 'largest concentration of inmates in the free world.' Later, the County and City jails were institutionally merged by the Illinois legislature, officially called the Cook County Department of Corrections, overseen by the Cook County Sheriff's Office. The adjacent '' George N. Leighton Criminal Courts Building'' is where the prisoners' criminal matters are heard in the Circuit Court of Cook County. A rather elaborate neoclassical and

inspired high-rise built in the late 1920s, the courthouse was long known by just its cross-street location "26th and Cal" (26th Street and California Avenue) and has held many high-profile cases and is often seen in films and television.

21st century

One of the largest clusters of

coronavirus disease 2019 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include f ...

(COVID-19) cases in the entire United States occurred during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. On April 3, 2020, the civil rights law firm Loevy & Loevy, MacArthur Justice Center, and Civil Rights Corps filed an emergency class action lawsuit on behalf of detainees, alleging Sheriff Tom Dart failed to stop a "rapidly unfolding public health disaster" and seeking immediate release of any prisoner whose constitutional rights were being violated by their continued detention amid the coronavirus crisis. On April 27, 2020, a federal judge overruled objections from Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Sheriff Tom Dart in a sweeping

preliminary injunction An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a special court order compelling a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts. It was developed by the English courts of equity but its origins go back to Roman law and the equitable reme ...

that mandated the Cook County Sheriff's Office implement additional testing and social distancing measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 at the jail. This included banning the jail from corralling new inmates into cramped “ bullpens” or group housing and mandating it provide face masks to all detainees under quarantine and regularly sanitize common surfaces. As of April 22, 2020, at least 812 confirmed COVID-19 cases were linked to the jail; due to a lack of testing, the actual number of infections linked to the jail is believed to be higher. The jail's inmate population dropped by almost one-fifth during the coronavirus pandemic after a state judge ordered a review of cases involving low-risk, primarily non-violent detainees. At least six inmates and one guard have died. And as of 26 July 2022, there has been one case of

monkeypox Mpox (, ; formerly known as monkeypox) is an infectious viral disease that can occur in humans and other animals. Symptoms include a rash that forms blisters and then crusts over, fever, and lymphadenopathy, swollen lymph nodes. The illness ...

in the prison with an inmate testing positive for the virus which is unlikely to spread across the prison.

Operations

At Metropolitan Correctional Center, Chicago (MCC Chicago) female prisoners needing to be isolated, as of 2005, have been taken to the Cook County Jail as the security housing unit (SHU) at the former is only for males.

U.S. Department of Justice report

In July 2008, the civil rights division of the

United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a United States federal executive departments, federal executive department of the U.S. government that oversees the domestic enforcement of Law of the Unite ...

released a report finding that the Eighth Amendment

civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' political freedom, freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and ...

of the

inmates A prisoner, also known as an inmate or detainee, is a person who is deprived of liberty against their will. This can be by confinement or captivity in a prison or physical restraint. The term usually applies to one serving a Sentence (law), se ...

has been systematically violated.'A serious problem' U.S. attorney says Cook County Jail falls short of basic standards
" ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is an American daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1847, it was formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper", a slogan from which its once integrated WGN (AM), WGN radio and ...

''. July 18, 2008. The report found that the CCJ failed to adequately protect inmates from harm or risk of harm from other inmates or staff; failed to provide adequate suicide prevention; failed to provide adequate sanitary environmental conditions; failed to provide adequate fire safety precautions; and failed to provide adequate medical and mental health care. Specific alleged violations that have resulted in Federal sanctions and/or class action lawsuits include: # Systematic beatings by corrections officers # Poor food quality # Inmates' being forced to sleep on cell floors due to overcrowding and mismanagement (resulting in a $1,000 per inmate class-action settlement) # Rodent infestation and injury caused to sleeping inmates by rat and mouse bites # Violations of privacy during multiple invasive strip searches # Failure to provide adequate medical care, including failure to dispense medications # Invasive and painful mandatory tests for male STDs (resulting in a $200 per inmate class action settlement) # Unnecessarily long waiting time for discharge upon payment of bond, completion of sentence, or charges being dropped. Wait times are currently routinely in excess of 8 hours, nearly all of which is spent with many inmates packed into tiny cells.

In popular culture

The women's section of the former Cook County jail near Hubbard Street is the setting used for the musical ''

'', as well as its 2002 film adaptation. The present jail is used in segments of TV series including '' Chicago Fire'' and ''

Better Call Saul ''Better Call Saul'' is an American legal crime drama television series created by Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould for AMC. Part of the ''Breaking Bad'' franchise, it is a spin-off of Gilligan's previous series, ''Breaking Bad'' (2008–201 ...

''.

B.B. King Riley B. King (September 16, 1925 – May 14, 2015), known professionally as B.B. King, was an American blues guitarist, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He introduced a sophisticated style of soloing based on fluid string bending, sh ...

's '' Live in Cook County Jail'' album features a live recording of a concert that he performed for the jail's inmates on September 10, 1970. A live album '' Concert: Friday the 13th - Cook County Jail'' featuring performances by jazz musicians

Jimmy McGriff James Harrell McGriff (April 3, 1936 – May 24, 2008) was an American hard bop and soul-jazz organist and organ trio bandleader. Biography Early years and influences Born in Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, McGriff started playing pia ...

and Lucky Thompson was released on the Groove Merchant label in 1973) The song "My Long Walk to Jail" on Filter's 2002 album '' The Amalgamut'' includes a sample of an incoming call from Cook County Jail. The Cook County Prison was referenced to by Elwood Blues (

Dan Aykroyd Daniel Edward Aykroyd ( ; born July 1, 1952) is a Canadian actor, comedian, screenwriter, and producer. Aykroyd was a writer and an original member of the "Not Ready for Prime Time Players" cast on the NBC sketch comedy series ''Saturday Nigh ...

) in the film ''

The Blues Brothers The Blues Brothers (formally, The Fabulous Blues Brothers’ Show Band and Revue) are an American blues and soul music, soul revue band founded in 1978 by comedians Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi, who met and began collaborating as original cast ...

'' as serving oatmeal to inmates. The Cook County Prison is where Bigger Thomas is held, in Richard Wright's '' Native Son''.

References

External links

Cook County Department of Corrections website

Department of Justice findings letter
{{Coord, 41.8414, -87.6975, type:landmark_region:US-IL, display=title Jails in Illinois Buildings and structures in Chicago Capital punishment in Illinois County government agencies in Illinois West Side, Chicago Execution sites in the United States