Cook County Jail


  • Photographer
    Lili Holzer-Glier
  • Prize
    Honorable Mention
  • Date of Photograph
    August 2017

This story documenting the prevalence of mental illness among inmates at Chicago's Cook County Jail was published in partnership with The Human Toll of Jail, a storytelling project from the Vera Institute of Justice and Narratively that was supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation's Safety and Justice Challenge. This project is currently being expanded into a book to be published in the fall of 2018 by powerHouse Books. The Cook County Department of Corrections in Chicago is one of the largest single-site pre-detention facilities in the world, with an average daily population hovering around 9,000 inmates. It is estimated that 35 percent of this population is mentally ill. Now more patients than ever are being treated in jail rather than at a mental health facility. Cook County Jail has become one of the largest, if not the largest, mental health care provider in the United States.

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