CHICAGO — Cook County’s electronic monitoring program has become “a serious threat to public safety” because the office of Chief Judge Timothy Evans, which recently assumed responsibility for its operation, is not equipped or prepared to handle it.
That’s not us talking. That’s Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke, who instructed the county’s prosecutors to publicly object anytime a judge places a defendant on an ankle monitor instead of granting the state’s request to keep them in jail.
After years of effort, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart successfully transferred responsibility for the electronic monitoring program on April 1. Dart has repeatedly said the county is misusing the program by putting violent and dangerous offenders on ankle monitors when the system was designed for low-level offenses like drug possession…