Since she took office nearly two years ago, Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke has sounded the alarm on Cook County’s electronic monitoring system.
In the past month or so, that alarm has evolved into an urgent call for action. State lawmakers, she says, must address a pretrial process that she contends is beyond repair by changing the law that authorizes the confinement of those accused of violent crimes in their homes while they await trial.
The system as it stands allows judges to permit those accused of murder, attempted murder and other serious violent crimes to await trial at home, with ankle monitors allowing personnel in the Cook County chief judge’s office to track their whereabouts. Under state law as it stands, those on electronic monitoring get a minimum of two “free roam” days — typically two eight-hour periods over the course of a week — during which they can go where they please with the monitors turned off.
There currently are 79 defendants accused of murder or attempted murder who are on electronic monitoring, O’Neill Burke’s office tells us.
And if you, like us, thought that maybe all or most of those examples were old cases before O’Neill Burke assumed office in December 2024, bringing with her a tougher stance than her predecessor on seeking pretrial detention for those accused of violent crimes, we have bad news. Cook County judges today are overruling prosecutors’ requests for confinement and allowing those accused of murder or attempted murder to await their day in court at home. Of those 79, 11 at a minimum have been put on electronic monitoring just in 2025 and 2026, according to the state’s attorney’s office.
How in the world is this unacceptable situation being allowed to continue?
Is anyone listening?
Some are. House Republicans have introduced bills that would address some of the concerns O’Neill Burke has raised. For example, there’s legislation pending that would eliminate the requirement that those on ankle bracelets be given two days a week to leave their homes and would automatically impose pretrial detention on those accused of committing a felony while subject to electronic monitoring for a different crime.
Senate Minority Leader John Curran offered companion legislation to detain those accused of a new felony while on home confinement and likewise has proposed eliminating the mandatory two days to roam freely.
But of course Republicans don’t call the shots in Springfield.
The silence from O’Neill Burke’s fellow Democrats on the issues she raises is deafening. That should not be allowed to continue.
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“I think what we can acknowledge is that electronic monitoring is not working,” she told us last week as we met with her to discuss a wide range of topics. “It is completely broken.” That, too, was the headline on her op-ed on the subject, published in the Tribune last month.
We certainly agree and we believe a decent number of Springfield Democrats agree as well, even if they’re apparently afraid to say so for fear of angering criminal-justice-reform advocates. Let’s start there. We have an urgent problem that must be fixed.
Unfortunately, how defenders of the current system typically respond to the multiple horror stories of terrible crimes committed by those on electronic monitoring is to blame the judges who rejected prosecutors’ requests to detain the perpetrators in the first place. That’s certainly what Gov. JB Pritzker did last spring after Alphanso Talley allegedly shot and killed Chicago police Officer John Bartholomew while out on electronic monitoring over the objections of the Cook County state’s attorney’s office.
Referring to the landmark state law that ended cash bail, Pritzker said at the time, “In most of the cases where Republicans have complained about the SAFE-T Act, it’s actually been a bad decision by an elected judge.”
Increasingly, this blame-shifting tack looks more like a simple excuse for inaction. Judges aren’t infallible nor should we expect them to be. Still, there clearly are some who are more willing than others to risk the public’s safety for ideological reasons.
It’s time for lawmakers to adopt commonsense reforms to an electronic-monitoring system in Cook County that is far more expansive than other similar jurisdictions like New York and Los Angeles and has gotten out of hand.
One such reform might well be simply to take away the home-confinement option from judges for particular types of crimes — say, murder, attempted murder and aggravated sexual assault. For starters.
“You just say, the following offenses are not eligible for electronic monitoring, and there can be negotiation on what those offenses can be,” O’Neill Burke told us.
Exactly. Begin that discussion, Springfield Democrats.
Another obvious problem is the requirement in current law that those on home confinement be given at least two days out in public, unmonitored.
At present, judges tailor those arrangements to individuals’ stated needs, meaning they can be slated for various days of the week over various hours of the day. The resulting hodgepodge of conditions make keeping track of 3,000 or so Cook County defendants on ankle monitors essentially impossible.
Second, what about the impact on witnesses to violent crimes? “Next day you see the guy back in the neighborhood wandering around,” O’Neill Burke said. “What’s the likelihood (witnesses) will be willing to come forward? Very small.”
Here’s another major problem: The law equates home confinement with jail time in terms of time served once defendants’ cases are adjudicated. That incentivizes defendants who know they’re likely to plead guilty or be found responsible to delay their day in court long enough to ensure they’ve served most if not all of their sentences at home.
“You’re in your home. Why are you getting credit as if you’re in custody?” O’Neill Burke says.
Why indeed?
We’re certain many ordinary Cook County residents have no idea this is how our criminal-justice system currently works. When more of them become informed, we expect to see things get uncomfortable for Springfield Democrats.
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