In the past few years, the FBI, the U.S. Attorney’s office, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and Illinois civil rights attorneys have all been concerned about the alleged beating of inmates at the Cook County Jail. Chicago Breaking News reports that a 2008 federal report found, “inmates were systematically beaten by guards, left unsupervised to attack each other and provided with poor medical care.”
Unfortunately, these civil rights violations seem to be recurring. Earlier this month, a fight erupted during breakfast that resulted in 11 inmates injuries. Earlier this summer, a subcommittee of the Cook County Board recommended that the county settle a lawsuit brought by more than a dozen inmates who alleged that the inmates were severely beaten by prison guards in retaliation for one inmate’s attack of a prison guard. The proposed settlement was for $750,000.
Inmates and their families should know that if an inmate is beaten by another prisoner or by a jail employee who is not acting in self defense then the inmate’s civil rights may have been violated. The best way to end the conditions cited in the 2008 federal report are for individual inmates to know that they have a voice and that together with a Chicago civil rights attorney, they can file a lawsuit against the County, recover damages and help end the civil rights violations which plague the Cook County Department of Corrections.