On February 25, 1924, the Board of Commissioners of Cook County appointed notable figures in Chicago to lead the Committee on New County Jail and Criminal Court Building—an idea first proposed by president of the Cook County Board of Commissioners and eventual Chicago mayor, Anton Cermak (Noel). The committee consisted of bankers, lawyers, building managers, government officials, activists, industry trade leaders, real estate agents and judges—many of whom had political loyalty to Cermak and thus supported his decisions for the location of the site (Noel)(Bogira).

             Anton Cermak Links to an external site./Public Domain                                                             Report of the Committee on New County Jail Links to an external site.
                                                                                                                                     and Criminal Court Building Links to an external site./Public Domain

Political affiliations aside, it appears the matter of constructing a new courthouse was of almost universal concern, as a 1924 report by the committee reads, “public officials, many organizations, and a large number of public-spirited citizens have given freely and fully of their time and strengthen the effort to remove the stigma upon our community caused by the existing County Jail and Criminal Court Building,” (Noel 46).

The commission outlined several key reasons for the construction of a new county jail and courthouse—the main impetus being the deleterious, “revolting” conditions of the current jail and courthouse (Noel 15). Per the committee’s report, the jail was said to have three times its designed capacity which manifested itself in increased disease and crime within the prison walls:

“Even one who is almost devoid of human sentiment and emotions cannot visit the County Jail without

 coming to the conclusion that conditions there are a disgrace to any civilized community.”

                         — Report of the Committee on New County Jail and Criminal Court Building, 1929

In light of these conditions, Cook County citizens had been asked to vote on proposed bonds for a new jail and courthouse on four separate occasions (Noel). Each of these proposals was rejected, the committee believes, due to the lack of a detailed and comprehensive plan for the new buildings—hence the purpose of the report (Noel).

Buildings, Volume 26, Stamats Publishing Company/Public Domain

The court building was deemed of similar poor conditions, being declared “officially unsafe for the purposes and uses to which it is put,” (Noel 19). In the belief of the committee, the image of the courthouse is a direct cause for and reflection of the state of the criminal justice system. Thus, the fire ordinance violations and “abominable…antiquated” state of the building reportedly “makes it difficult to uphold the majesty of law,” whereas a modern rendition was supposedly able to reduce the number of citizens who need to be adjudicated and improve criminal justice as a whole (Noel 19). It can thus be inferred that the building’s chief architect, Eric Edward Hall, carried this belief into this design for the structure in that he worked closely with the committee throughout the construction process, even touring various prisons and interviewing staff about their views of the structures (Hall).

The courthouse officially opened on April Fool’s Day in 1929 (Baer). At the time, only the new courthouse, the jail administration building and the jail sat on the 96 acre plot (Rogers Park/West Ridge Historical Society). The jail consisted of only one main building, housing 3,200 inmates — a number believed to be “the largest concentration of prisoners in the free world,” (Rogers Park/West Ridge Historical Society). However, the previous jail’s problem with overcrowding followed to the new site at 26th and California, and until 1969, no action was taken to mitigate the issue that caused the construction of this new building in the first place. In 1969, a vote was made to combine the jurisdiction of the Cook County Jail and the House of Corrections (Rogers Park/West Ridge Historical Society). Over the next several decades, extensions would be made to the jail to quell the ever-present issue of overcrowding (Rogers Park/West Ridge Historical Society).

Today, the jail consists of 11 divisions, each with its own superintendent for a daily total of 10,000 inmates (Baer). The courthouse likewise has an immensely high degree of traffic. According to journalist Jason Meisner, “More than 22,000 cases are decided every year in [the courthouse’s] 31 courtrooms, and it's not unusual for a judge to have more than 300 cases on his or her call."

   
John Wayne Gacy Links to an external site. by Des Plaines Police Department/Public Domain              Al Capone at Terminal Island in California by FBI/ Links to an external site.Public Domain

Among the thousands of inmates that have resided in Cook County Jail, there have been some notorious criminals including serial killer John Wayne Gacy and Al Capone, as well as infamous cases such as that involving actor Jussie Smolett in 2018 (Stone 113)(De Mar and Kozlov). While there have been fluctuations in the number of inmates, due in large part to efforts like bond reform which lowered the inmate population by 1,500 in 2017, the jail and its adjacent court nevertheless maintain their reputation as one of if not the most trafficked criminal justice institutions in the world (Lopez). Yet, as a result of these marginal declines in inmate population, in June of 2021, the Cook County’s Bureau of Asset Management began demolishing two vacant divisions of the jail (Hurtado).