Chicago jail’s new hope: Change the criminal mind
43 percent of Illinois offenders are charged within three years of being released from incarceration. Inmate programs focusing on therapy hope to decrease that number.
CHICAGO – The day’s group therapy session for the young detainees at the county jail started with their behavioral health specialist testing them with a hypothetical scenario: They’ve cheated on a girlfriend, and the other woman is pregnant.
The participants – all facing serious charges and picked for the jail’s intensive therapy program because they’re considered at high risk of getting caught in Chicago’s intractable gun violence once they leave custody – bristled at a push for honest talk.
“Am I ready to take this journey?” asked Timothy Moore, the counselor, who told the detainees the question was as relevant to addressing their lives on Chicago’s streets as it was to navigating their relationships. “Am I ready to listen? Am I ready to be honest? That’s what counts. That’s the first step.”
And the Cook County Sheriff ’s Office initiative dubbed S.A.V.E. was off and running.
Programs such as S.A.V.E., or the Sheriff’s Anti-Violence Effort, use cognitive behavioral therapy, treatment that focuses on helping young men rec-
ognize their instinctual responses and slow down their thinking.
The sheriff ’s office bets that the therapy, which has gained popularity in several cities, can help some of Chicago’s incarcerated population get a better handle on their impulses.
Participants attend therapy and life skills classes five days a week.
Tom Dart, the Cook County sheriff, said he told his staff that the program’s objective is met if a participant after his release “didn’t shoot anybody and wasn’t shot by anybody.”
The 2-year-old program at Cook County Jail in Chicago was launched as the nation’s third-largest city saw gun violence skyrocket in 2016 and 2017.
There were more than 1,400 murders and 6,200 shootings.
Murders are down 23 percent in 2018 compared with the same time last year, but the city is once again on track to lead the nation in homicides.
The Cook County Jail’s S.A.V.E. program is unique among programs using therapy as a violence prevention tool because it works with offenders while they are still incarcerated.
The participants volunteer for the program and must express a desire to make sweeping changes in their lives.
After S.A.V.E participants leave jail, the sheriff ’s department steers them to anti-violence groups on the outside that offer services such as job training and continued therapy.
Randy Leflore, 21, spent about seven months in S.A.V.E. before a judge agreed to release him on electronic monitoring in June 2017 while he awaits trial.
Leflore was accused of carrying out three armed robberies of laundromats.
He acknowledged he was in a bad place when he was arrested. He credited S.A.V.E. with helping him restart his life.
“The important thing I got out of S.A.V.E. was to change the way I think,” said Leflore, who has been working part-time jobs since his release.
“When someone dies in Englewood … the first thing that comes to mind is retaliation,” Leflore said. “When things like that happen, now I just sit.”