One year ago today, Jeffery Pendelton died while shackled to a bed at Stroger Hospital. Mr. Pendleton was the first person to lose his life after having contracted COVID-19 while in the custody of Cook County Jail. Over the course of the next year, nine more people would die from COVID-19 while in the custody of the Cook County Sheriff’s Office and hundreds more would contract the virus. 

Each one of these deaths was completely preventable; every lost life was a direct consequence of our elected officials’ failure to prepare for and adequately respond to the threat posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic did not expose anything new about the harms of pretrial incarceration—it simply magnified them. Communities most directly impacted by the jail and advocates have known for decades about the jail’s horrid conditions and the obscene number of people denied pretrial freedom just because they can not afford to pay a money bond. Overwhelmingly, our elected officials have ignored the dire need for decarceration, including mass release. Throughout the greatest medical crisis of a generation, dragged their feet and repeatedly made excuses while community members suffered cuffed and caged in Cook County Jail. 

It is important that we remember that the only reason the virus is under control inside Cook County Jail is because of the persistent actions taken by people incarcerated in the jail, their families and other community members, and advocates. Throughout the pandemic, people across Cook County raised their voices and took action in solidarity with people incarcerated in the jail. A recent study by Stanford and Yale Universities found that the reduction in the number of people incarcerated in the jail and social distancing measures saved lives and reduced COVID-19 infections. Both of these actions were a direct result of community organizing and a civil rights lawsuit targeting conditions inside the jail. Community and advocate efforts to decarcerate in the name of public health were documented in our report, “Protecting Public Health Through Decarceration: Holding Cook County’s Criminal Courts Accountable During The COVID-19 Pandemic,” which was published in September 2020.

In the free world, social distancing has been the main line of defense in the fight to stop the spread of COVID-19. Throughout the pandemic, advocates highlighted the need to reduce the number of people incarcerated in county jails where cramped conditions make social distancing impossible. Advocates repeatedly highlighted that ending the practice of incarcerating people on unaffordable money bonds would have quickly reduced the number of people incarcerated in county jails throughout the state, while restoring their presumption of innocence and pretrial freedom which being denied by unconstitutional unaffordable money bonds.

Instead of respecting the fact that money bonds are an authorization of someone’s pretrial release, many judges elected to deny people their pretrial freedom. As a result, thousands of people remained incarcerated in jail or on electronic monitoring—even though they would have had freedom without conditions if their finances allowed them to purchase it. This insistence on pretrial punishment and the slow pace at which the courts have resolved pending cases has led to a dramatic increase in the number of people incarcerated on electronic monitoring and the total number of people in the custody of the Cook County Sheriff’s Office. There are currently more than 1,000 more people incarcerated on electronic monitoring than there were when the pandemic began and more than 9,400 people in the custody of the Sheriff’s Office—more than were incarcerated before the virus took hold last March. 

While the pandemic may be approaching manageable levels, it is essential that the grave injustices that COVID-19 made it impossible to ignore not be allowed to remain part of our “return to normal.” During the pandemic, the Illinois legislature passed the Pretrial Fairness Act, which was subsequently signed into law by Governor Pritzker. When the law goes into effect in 2023, it will end the use of monetary bonds. It is imperative that the Pretrial Fairness Act goes into effect as passed to ensure that Illinois dramatically reduces the number of people incarcerated in our state’s 92 county jails. It is essential that our legislators protect these reforms from attacks made by the same law enforcement and other officials that failed communities across the state throughout the pandemic. Had the crucial reforms included in the Pretrial Fairness Act been in effect when the pandemic began, there would have been significantly less devastation caused by the virus both inside jails and in surrounding communities across the state. 

Our Coalition remains committed to fighting for the freedom of people incarcerated pretrial in county jails or in their homes across Illinois and to protecting our neighbors’ right to pretrial freedom. 

Remembering Those Who Died of COVID-19 While in the Custody of the Cook County Sheriff’s Office: 

Jeffery Pendleton

Leslie Pieroni

Nickolas Lee

Karl Battise

Juan Salgado Mendoza

Rene Olivio

William Sobczyk

Harold Graszer

Theodore Becker 

Jose Villa