Time stands still in Cook County Jail for some inmates

Those delays are costly: Room and board per inmate is more than $52,000 a year. So the tab is more than $2 million a year just for the inmates who’ve been held in the jail at least five years.

Meanwhile, the average length of stay for inmates has risen from 50 days in 2007 to 57 days last year. The jail population is bursting at the seams. On Friday, the jail housed 9,796 inmates — 646 inmates below capacity.

The differences of opinion on how to deal with pretrial delays and jail crowding were on display last month when Dart, Cook County President Toni Preckwinkle and Cook County Chief Judge Tim Evans appeared on WTTW’s “Chicago Tonight.”

“The time we are taking to dispose of cases — we’re not doing very well in Cook County,” Preckwinkle said.

She pointed out that 70 percent of the inmates are waiting for trial on non-violent charges.

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