Special jury to urge Cook County Jail reforms: Prisoner-abuse probe completed

A special grand jury organized to investigate operations at the Cook County Jail will make 20 recommendations for improvements at the facility, its lead investigator said Monday. Findings of the 16-member panel, which began considering the treatment of prisoners at the Southwest Side complex in spring 2003, will be officially announced by mid-September, said lead investigator Thomas Hett, a former Circuit Court judge. He declined to discuss specifics. The special grand jury began under the direction of Chief Criminal Court Judge Paul Biebel Jr., who asked for an accounting of conditions after reports of systematic inmate abuse. In one alleged incident, an elite team of 40 guards was accused of beating inmates in a maximum-security unit in February 1999. Lawyers for five inmates also have complained that men they represent were beaten by guards in July 2000. The U.S. Department of Justice already has launched a civil rights probe into the 1999 claims. Some 49 prisoners have said members of the Special Operations Response Team beat them in that 1999 incident, and the Cook County sheriff's office drew criticism when its investigation of the matter was stalled for more than two years. During that time the statute of limitations on criminal charges ran out. [more ]