Chicago's electronic ankle monitoring program — you know, the one that's supposed to keep track of dangerous criminals awaiting trial — just admitted that 246 participants with active warrants are straight-up missing. Gone. AWOL. Eight percent of the entire program, vanished into the wind, and some of these people are charged with violent crimes.
So Chicago can track your parking meter down to the second, but violent felons with GPS devices strapped to their legs? Nah, that's too hard.
The numbers come from an official report released by the Office of the Chief Judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County. Out of 3,048 total participants in the monitoring program as of May 8, 246 have active warrants and are classified as absent without leave. The program defines AWOL as being outside allowed areas during curfew for extended periods, or having a monitoring device that lost power or connectivity. Translation: they either cut the thing off, let the battery die, or just walked away — and nobody noticed until the spreadsheet got embarrassing.
Chief Judge Charles Beach II, to his credit, didn't try to spin it. He said: "Transparency is not optional – it is a core obligation of this office. The public has a right to know how this program operates, what the data shows and what we are doing every day to make it stronger." That's a nice sentiment, Your Honor, but "transparency" after you've lost 246 criminals is a little like locking the barn door after the horse committed armed robbery.
Here's where it gets really fun. This isn't a program for jaywalkers and shoplifters. Among those who've gone AWOL from Chicago's ankle monitor program was a suspect accused of killing a Chicago police officer. Let that sink in. Someone charged with murdering a cop was deemed trustworthy enough for an ankle bracelet instead of a jail cell, and then the city lost track of him.
And remember Lawrence Reed? He was a participant in the electronic monitoring program when he allegedly set fire to a Chicago train back in January. The program that was supposedly keeping tabs on him didn't prevent him from — allegedly — committing arson on public transit.
This is what soft-on-crime looks like in practice. Not in theory. Not in some academic debate about criminal justice reform. In practice: you catch violent offenders, you tag them with an ankle monitor instead of holding them, and then you lose them. Two hundred and forty-six of them. With active warrants.
Cook County keeps telling us the system works. The data says otherwise. Eight percent of monitored suspects have gone ghost, at least one was charged with killing a cop, and another allegedly lit a train on fire while wearing the bracelet. As reported by Just The News, the city's own data is the indictment.
Chicago doesn't have a crime problem. It has a consequences problem.