Cook County Chief Judge Charles S. Beach II yesterday issued his first public announcement since taking office Monday, unveiling a new committee that he said will urgently review how his office’s electronic monitoring program handles reported violations by people wearing ankle monitors.
The move comes as scrutiny intensifies over the system’s failure to respond to multiple alerts it received in the days before 50-year-old Lawrence Reed set a woman on fire aboard a Blue Line train in the Loop last month.
Beach’s statement offered a cautious but pointed acknowledgment that the court’s monitoring program needs clearer coordination and faster information sharing. Without referring to the Reed case specifically, Beach’s statement said recent events highlighted the need for well-defined roles among the agencies involved in pretrial supervision. Beach promised a transparent, evidence-based review that would result in concrete, actionable recommendations by late January…