Inmates have too much time on their hands.
Staffers in the Cook County Public Defender’s Office are used to clients who may have done horrible things, but over the last two years, female employees say their clients have become more brazen in doing horrible things right in front of them.
Masturbating inmates have become a common sight on the walk to and from holding cells where defense attorneys meet clients, and at the jail and in courthouse lockups. Last week, in a letter to Chief Judge Timothy Evans, Public Defender Amy Campanelli said her staff has reached a breaking point.
Campanelli declined to share a copy of the letter, but confirmed that she warned the judge that her staff won’t visit the jail starting Nov. 6 unless he or Sheriff Tom Dart can offer up a solution.
A spokesman for Evans said Campanelli will have a chance to speak at a regularly scheduled judges’ meeting that day.
“There have always been these incidents since I became a public defender,” said Campanelli, who has been in the office for more than a decade. “But it’s never been like it is today, where it’s like the behavior we’re seeing now, every day, or every other day. It’s just become pervasive. We’ve tried everything.”
Campanelli — who lauded Dart’s efforts to combat the phenomenon — said nothing has worked. Her office provided a timeline dating back to October 2015, detailing attempts to deal with an increasing number of incidents. In letter obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times, Campanelli wrote to Dart in March, describing it as a “crisis” and calling for guards to be assigned to every lockup in the criminal courthouse.
“Of late, it has become a daily occurrence,” she wrote. “Male detainees constantly expose themselves and masturbate while in the lockup behind the courtrooms.”
HT: Marathon Pundit