80% of Cook County Misdemeanor Cases have been dismissed between 2006 and 2012

The Chicago Reporter reports on Crook County:

Eight out of 10 misdemeanor cases have been dismissed between 2006 and 2012, shows a Chicago Reporter analysis of records for 1.4 million cases maintained by the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County and the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts.

Cook County’s dismissal rate is among the highest in the nation, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Candace McCoy, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at The City University of New York, said that’s likely the result of a policing strategy she describes as “rounding up of the usual suspects.”

“Police can round people up that they see as disorderly,” said McCoy, an expert on pretrial processes. “Are these people guilty of anything? We don’t know, do we?”

Michael Morrissey, a veteran Cook County public defender, said what’s far more telling than any statistic is a visit to the pre-bond court holding cell at the Cook County Jail. “Some 300 people are arrested and in the bullpen each morning on the weekends,” he said. It’s the backend of what he calls “sweep the streets” policing.

That has come at an enormous cost. During the past seven years, taxpayers have spent an estimated $796 million on arrests, prosecutions and detentions in these dead-end cases, the Reporter analysis shows.

Yet, progressives in Cook County have no problems with this one party regime!