Wilson v. Cook County Board of Commissioners

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

GETTLEMAN, Judge.

Introduction

Twenty-nine years ago, Dr. Karl Menninger described the conditions endured by pretrial detainees in this nation’s jails and lockups as “miserable, overcrowded, crime- and-disease-breeding.” 1 Among the jails Dr. Menninger examined was the Cook County Jail (the “Jail,” the subject of the instant ease), which he toured with the then executive director of the John Howard Association. The superintendent of this institution conceded “that deviate sex practices, beating of inmates by other inmates, smuggling of contraband, and other vicious…