Prison Culture

Mar 25 2014

“If You Take Our Clinics, We Will Die…”

Last month, Sheriff Tom Dart who oversees the Cook County Jail tweeted the following:

Today at the Cook County Jail intake, 48% of pre-trial detainees self-identified as mentally ill. 44% of the males, 75% of the females.

— Tom Dart (@TomDart) February 26, 2014

Earlier this month, he (or his office) tweeted:

Today at the Cook County Jail intake, 40% of pre-bond detainees self-identified as mentally ill. 30% for the men, 67% for the women.

— Tom Dart (@TomDart) March 6, 2014

Both of these tweets illustrate the fact that jails have become warehouses for the mentally ill.

To dramatize this reality while advocating for the reinstatement of community-based mental health clinics, members of the Chicago Mental Heath Movement organized a vigil at Cook County Jail yesterday. In 2012, Rahm Emanuel closed 6 of 12 Chicago public mental health clinics. The Mental Health Movement fought valiantly to prevent those closures and has been fighting ever since to re-open them.

My friend Sarah Jane Rhee documented the vigil and below are some of her photographs.