If you want to judge Cook County States Attorney’s Eileen O’Neill Burke’s impact in office, look at drops in violent crime, not the jail population
Less than five months into her term in office, Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke is being blamed by her colleague, Sheriff Tom Dart, for the modest increase in the Cook County jail’s population. The Chicago Tribune reported that Dart is now “tracking” the policies of the new State’s Attorney from the date she was sworn-in to assist the criminal justice reform advocates who are predictably sounding the alarm over the higher number of detainments.
Recall that Dart recently turned over control his office’s disastrous, electronic monitoring program (EM) to the Circuit Court of Cook County. Dart washed his hands of the 35-year program that had at times over 3,000 defendants because he said he could no longer safely monitor those charged with violent crimes, including murder, criminal sexual assault, and gun crimes.
Might Dart ceding responsibility over the EM program have something to do with the increase in jail population? Prior to Dart relinquishing control over the EM program, defendants on EM were able to serve their sentence while at home, and were receiving “good time” credit, meaning one day served at home equated to two that would be served in prison if a guilty verdict or please was entered. To be clear, serving murder charges from your couch is not offered anywhere else in the country.
Let's not be led to believe the Sheriff's Office handing control over the EM program to the courts means that sanity has been restored to Cook County. Instead, Cook County Board President, Toni Preckwinkle, has forced Chief Judge Timothy Evans to take over the program. Not only does this pass a program with a majority of defendants charged with violent or gun crimes to a non-law enforcement agency, but it also passes EM enforcement to the understaffed and overworked Chicago Police Department. CPD is the only stakeholder that does not have access to the case files or information regarding the defendants.
The Chief Judge currently operates an EM program for domestic abusers. The plan to “call 911” when someone violates their conditions and the GPS boundaries resulted in the horrific death of Mirela Beldie last summer, who had sought protection from the courts after attacks and threats from her estranged husband. An off-duty officer was injured trying to save her. The GPS bracelet did nothing to safeguard her, and sadly the technology has failed and led to murders in other domestic violence cases across Illinois.
The poor performance of the EM program should be a major public and officer safety concern. Enacted by County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and Sheriff Dart in an effort to keep the jail’s population from rising, transferring the Electronic Monitoring programs and new policies to the Chief Judge’s Office will lead to more violent crimes and tragedies. But remember: Burke defeating Preckwinkle’s Democratic Party candidate in the Democratic primary race for State's Attorney drew the ire of Democrat loyalists and the sting will last for years to come. Blaming Burke is much easier than fixing EM's systemic issues that leads to recidivism and violent crimes.
Not mentioned in Dart’s condescending “tracking” is that Superintendent of Police Larry Snelling has restored quality leadership at CPD, which has resulted in a reversal of arrests rates, which had plummeted by over 50 percent under former Superintendent David Brown. By February 2025, Chicago had 929 more arrests than the previous February. It is also Spring in Chicago, and arrest and incarceration rates increase in the warmer weather months.
Another factor worth considering is the Pretrial Fairness Act (PFA), formerly the SAFE-T Act, which went into full effect in September of 2023. In the law's first year, the jail population was reduced by 10 percent via some of the incoherent policies in Cook County’s application of the law, including sending “postcards” when a defendant who was released failed to appear in court.
Former Clerk of the Circuit Court, Iris Martinez, bravely shared that her office had been ordered to send an astounding 60,000 postcards in the first year alone. Previously, a failure to appear would have led warrants issued for arrest. It is not hard to imagine that some of these defendants are being re-arrested after having fled from their prior cases and therefore are now being detained. How many postcards does it take for Cook County leadership to realize this "postcard" policy is inept and harmful to those most vulnerable?
Finally, the Chicago Tribune reported the average daily jail population rose by about 12 percent in recent months. But let’s analyze these data: Before the PFA, on September 1st, 2023, the total number of those in jail and on the Sheriff’s EM program was 7,289. On April 21, 2025, it was 7,235. If Dart would like to track data, he should start with his own office’s failure to serve 75 percent of orders of protection, which has put countless women and their children in jeopardy. Dart could also act upon the backlog of 37,000 criminal arrest warrants that have piled up in his office, all of which have gone unenforced.
Expect the Cook County Jail population to continue to grow as Burke removes and keeps dangerous and habitual criminals off the street. Thus far, Burke has demonstrated a firmer stance on violent crime than her predecessor. Monthly admissions for people ordered detained increased 47 percent as of the end of March, compared with admissions the month prior to her taking office. Admissions for domestic battery saw the largest increases, 81 percent.
The crackdown on domestic violence perpetuators is long overdue as the women and their children murdered from domestic violence skyrocketed, doubling last year. So, too, are the efforts to keep violent offenders off the streets. CWB reports almost 20 percent of arrests for violent crime, including 408 for murder or attempted murder (2020-2024) were out on pre-trail bail for another felony charge when they committed the additional crimes. Given the abysmal arrest rate the actual number is 4-5 times. Over 90 percent of those who commit violent crimes are on the street.
If stakeholders in Cook County's justice system were interested in achieving justice, they would push for reforms that expedite the criminal justice process, provide greater transparency on crime statistics and enforcement, as well as transparency on the decisions and rationale of prosecutors and judges. Unfortunately, achieving true justice for victims of crime will take a back seat to the criminal justice reform advocates who measure progress solely by falling jail population.
Toni Preckwinkle is the “Architect” of the elections of Kim Foxx, Tom Dart, and countless judges. Preckwinkle is determined to shrink the County Jail population for both ideological and financial reasons. As Burke moves to professionalize the State’s Attorney’s Office and return it to its primary mission — protecting the public — look for Preckwinkle, Dart and allies to blame Burke and accuse her of abandoning pretrial fairness. Meanwhile, Preckwinkle will find ways to undermine her directly through the budget process, via her control of the judges, or indirectly through friendly media penning scathing editorials or publishing bogus stories that question her reputation or competence in office.
Although I am not acquainted with her personally, I am confident Judge Burke is restoring the balance to the States Attorney’s Office and is offering the leadership to that office we so desperately needed. If you want to “track” Burke's impact, look at violent crime. Violent crime is decreasing and Chicago, which had lagged behind the nation in reduction in murders following the removal of COVID pandemic restrictions, has now pulled even through the first quarter this year since Burke took office. Her policies just might have something to do with it.
