1. U.S. Department of Justice report

2. In popular culture

3. References

4. External links

The Cook County Jail, located on {{convert|96|acre|ha|abbr=off}} in Cook County, Illinois, is the largest single site jail in the United States.{{citation needed|date=October 2018}} Located at 2700 South California Avenue in the city of Chicago, it houses about 6500^[1] prisoners and employs 3900 law enforcement officials and 7000 civilian employees.

The jail has held several well-known and infamous criminals, including Tony Accardo, Frank Nitti, Larry Hoover, Jeff Fort, Richard Speck, John Wayne Gacy and the Chicago Seven.

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 of James Duke on August 24, 1962. The state's other electrocutions were carried out at the Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill and at the Menard Correctional Center in Chester.

U.S. Department of Justice report

In July 2008, the civil rights division of the United States Department of Justice released a report finding that the Eighth Amendment civil rights of the inmates has been systematically violated.^[2][3] The report found that the CCJ failed to adequately protect inmates from harm or risk of harm from other inmates or staff; failed to provide adequate suicide prevention; failed to provide adequate sanitary environmental conditions; failed to provide adequate fire safety precautions; and failed to provide adequate medical and mental health care.

Specific alleged violations that have resulted in Federal sanctions and/or class action lawsuits include:

1. Systematic beatings by corrections officers
2. Poor food quality
3. Inmates' being forced to sleep on cell floors due to overcrowding and mismanagement (resulting in a $1,000 per inmate class-action settlement)
4. Rodent infestation and injury caused to sleeping inmates by rat and mouse bites
5. Violations of privacy during multiple invasive strip searches
6. Failure to provide adequate medical care, including failure to dispense medications
7. Invasive and painful mandatory tests for male STDs (resulting in a $200 per inmate class action settlement)
8. Unnecessarily long waiting time for discharge upon payment of bond, completion of sentence, or charges' being dropped. Wait times are currently routinely in excess of 8 hours, nearly all of which is spent with many inmates packed into tiny cells.

In popular culture

The Cook County jail is the setting used for the musical Chicago, as well as its 2002 film adaptation. It has also been in segments of TV series including Chicago Fire and Better Call Saul.

B.B. King's Live in Cook County Jail album features a live recording of a concert that he performed for the jail's inmates on September 10, 1970.

A live album Friday the 13th - Cook County Jail featuring performances by jazz musicians Jimmy McGriff and Lucky Thompson was released on the Groove Merchant label in 1973)

The song "My Long Walk to Jail" on Filter's 2002 album The Amalgamut includes a sample of an incoming call from Cook County Jail.

The Cook County Prison was referenced to by Elwood Blues (Dan Aykroyd) in the film The Blues Brothers as serving oatmeal to inmates.

The Cook County Prison is where Bigger Thomas is held, in Richard Wright's Native Son.

References

External links

• Cook County Department of Corrections Website
• Department of Justice Findings Letter

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