Story URL: http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=105217
Story Retrieval Date: 5/18/2013 11:36:46 PM CST
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Incoming prosecutor looking at options to reopen community branches
by Samantha Abernethy
Nov 12, 2008
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Samantha Abernethy/MEDILL
The blue points mark where the Cook County state's attorney's office previously had satellite offices for community prosecution. The red point marks where the main office is located. Click to enlarge or see the related links to go to the interactive map.
Community prosecution offices, a common crime prevention strategy, plant attorneys in neighborhoods to develop problem-solving strategies with other agencies. Attorneys work with teachers, police and clergymen to identify situations that can create the opportunity for crime and step in before it can be committed.
“The whole concept is that it would put a name to the face for citizens, to bring them closer, so they feel more comfortable, as opposed to having to go to 26th and California or to very large, busy court facilities,” said Sally Daly, spokeswoman for Alvarez.
Daly added that locations have not been selected, but would be geographically chosen to reach the most people.
Cook County had five community prosecution offices, but they were casualties of Cook County Board President Todd Stroger’s 2007 budget cuts, mandated to make up the expected $502 million budget deficit.
In February 2007, the community prosecution offices—three in Chicago, one in Oak Park and one in Maywood—and the community outreach unit were closed. The office also lost 75 lawyers; the public defender’s office lost 43 lawyers.
In an article in Crain’s Chicago Business in January 2007, John Gorman, spokesman for outgoing prosecutor Dick Devine, said of the cuts, “It’s pennywise and pound-foolish.”
Many officials considered the offices successful, and Maywood police officer Percy Allen said last week that the Maywood office has been missed. He said any new iteration, if Alvarez decides to stick with the same general locations, would be a welcome addition to Maywood’s community policing efforts.
He also said that Maywood has tried to keep the programs that were started by the community prosecution office operating by working with other organizations, such as Operation Safe Child, which runs programs to teach children about strangers, gangs and drugs.
During the campaign, Green Party candidate Thomas O’Brien, an assistant prosecutor in the office, argued that creating more offices would not attract residents, suggesting it would be much more effective to reach out through existing community groups and churches. Daly said that Alvarez is definitely planning on using those resources, as well as schools, police and county commissioners.
Notwithstanding the financial hurdles, Daly said that Alvarez does not anticipate opposition to the proposal. In May, though, her opponent, Republican candidate Tony Peraica, who is a Cook County Board member, dismissed the community prosecution offices as nothing more than a "feel-good measure to provide do-nothing jobs for the politically connected."
Daly said that Alvarez plans to reopen the offices without asking for more money from the County Board.
She said Alvarez believes the offices can be created without additional personnel costs by reassigning existing prosecutors, and hope to defray administrative costs by partnering with private businesses for donations.
Alvarez, the first female and Hispanic to be prosecutor, takes office on Dec. 1.
