‘Sadistic Culture of Brutality and Violence’ Alleged at Cook County Jail

A lawsuit filed against the
Cook County sheriff and other county officials by the the MacArthur
Justice Center at Northwestern University alleges the systemic use
of violence at the jail of the Illinois county where Chicago is
located.  The lawsuit includes testimony from almost 100
inmates, and alleges,
via the Chicago Tribune:

“The sadistic violence and brutality at the Cook County
Jail is not the work of a few rogue officers,” the class-action
lawsuit states. “It is a systemic problem that has remained
unchecked at the highest levels of Cook County government. The
defendants have had actual knowledge of this pattern of violence
for years – if not decades.”

The suit accuses Cook County of failing to protect jail inmates and
allowing a “sadistic culture of brutality and violence” that puts
prisoners “under a constant risk of life-threatening
violence.”

Cook County has been dominated by the Democratic party machine
for decades. The lack of a muscular political opposition makes the
already pyrrhic task of government accountability even more
difficult. A Justice Department investigative report filed in 2008
found
widespread abuses and a systemic violation of inmates’
constitutional rights. The Cook County jail don’t hold state or
federal prisoners; most of their inmates are awaiting trial. The
jail apparently
holds more than 12,000 prisoners, and employs nearly 11,000 people.
It’s the largest single site jail in the country.

Illinois’ state prison came under some fire in the ’90s, when
 the Richard Speck prison video, obtained by a local news
anchor, was shown to Illinois state legislature. That video
depicted Speck, a convicted mass murder, sharing a huge pile of
cocaine with other inmates, who also passed around money and
paraded Speck around in panties and a bra. The video also showed
Speck performing oral sex on another inmate. That’s when state
legislators stopped the tape. They were
outraged, but not much else happened.