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Cook County Jail
The Cook County Jail, located on 96 acres (39 hectares) in South Lawndale, Chicago, Illinois, is operated by the Sheriff of Cook County. It is sometimes referred to as 26th and Cal or Hotel California, as its address is on California Avenue. A city jail has existed on this site since after the Great Chicago Fire 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 courthouse for the criminal division of the Cook County Circuit Court 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 and New York City jail systems).
The jail has held several well-known and infamous criminals, including Al Capone, Tony Accardo, Frank Nitti, Larry Hoover, Jordan Tate, Jeff Fort, Richard Speck, John Wayne Gacy and the Chicago Seven. Earlier such jails have held other prisoners, including those involving the Haymarket Affair.
It was one of three sites in which executions were carried out by electrocution in Illinois. Between 1928 and 1962, the electric chair 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, until the state abolished its death penalty in 2011.
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 Great Chicago Fire) 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 art deco 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.
One of the largest clusters of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases in the entire United States occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. 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 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.
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Cook County Jail
The Cook County Jail, located on 96 acres (39 hectares) in South Lawndale, Chicago, Illinois, is operated by the Sheriff of Cook County. It is sometimes referred to as 26th and Cal or Hotel California, as its address is on California Avenue. A city jail has existed on this site since after the Great Chicago Fire 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 courthouse for the criminal division of the Cook County Circuit Court 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 and New York City jail systems).
The jail has held several well-known and infamous criminals, including Al Capone, Tony Accardo, Frank Nitti, Larry Hoover, Jordan Tate, Jeff Fort, Richard Speck, John Wayne Gacy and the Chicago Seven. Earlier such jails have held other prisoners, including those involving the Haymarket Affair.
It was one of three sites in which executions were carried out by electrocution in Illinois. Between 1928 and 1962, the electric chair 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, until the state abolished its death penalty in 2011.
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 Great Chicago Fire) 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 art deco 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.
One of the largest clusters of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases in the entire United States occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. 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 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.