Interest group files federal lawsuit against Cook County over 'sadistic culture' in prison

According to a report by the Chicago Tribune, an interest group lodged a lawsuit on Thursday against Cook County for its failure to provide protection to its inmates and allowing a culture of brutality and violence to cultivate in jail. The MacArthur Justice Center at Northwestern University has named Cook County board president Toni Preckwinkle, Sheriff Tom Dart and other county officials as defendants in the lawsuit.

The class-action suit, which contained sworn statements from around a hundred County inmates, read, "The sadistic violence and brutality at the Cook County Jail is not the work of a few rogue officers. 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 Chicago paper said that based from the statements of the inmates, the Cook County jail allows authorities in charge like jail officers to assault or encourage violence in inmates. Moreover, the statements also claimed that the officers in charge were racist and homophobic towards inwards, and oftentimes attack some of the inmates even if the latter were restrained.

This would not be the first time Cook County received a complaint or a lawsuit regarding abusive practices of its officers in its jail, the Chicago Tribune said. In 2004, a special grand jury was formed to investigate Cook County's jail conditions. The investigation led to the discovery of the failure of the officials of the county sheriff to investigate a mass beating of inmates in 1999.

It is to note that the Justice Center already sued Cook County before, and at that time, the complaint was over the county jail's overcrowding situation, which was a direct violation to a 1982 court order. Despite the repeated investigations on Cook County, the latest lawsuit by the Justice Center claimed that little change has been done at the jail.

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Cook County, MacArthur Justice Center at Northwestern University

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