(WTTW News)

Cook County Jail provides medications for opioid use disorder to incarcerated people. Where frustration comes from advocates — and local officials — is the limitations of the Illinois Department of Corrections’ medication programming in prisons.

Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, pictured right, explains how his office will implement a program to offer state IDs to exiting inmates. The program is a collaboration with Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Andrew Adams)
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Regardless of how long a detainee stays in jail, however, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said a state ID has consistently been at the “top of the list” of needs that those in jail reported to officials upon intake “because it unlocks everything else.”

(WTTW New)

Get an inside look at how a regional task force is working to apprehend carjackers across Chicago. 

(WTTW News)

“We’re doing all this work with people and mental illness and working with their individual issues, but then when they would leave us, they would go out to the community with minimal services,” Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said. “And I said, OK, we will set up our own services office.”

(WTTW News)

Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart on Friday said millions more dollars must be dedicated to helping police departments recover weapons from those who’ve had their FOID cards revoked.

Some of the 600-plus catalytic converters investigators alleged they recovered from the home of a Worth Township man. (Cook County Sheriff’s Office)

Ramsy Sandoka, 40, has been charged with a felony count of aggravated possession of a stolen vehicle and misdemeanor counts of failure to keep recyclable purchase records, selling/purchasing catalytic converters and a violation of recycle metal law after police found more than 600 catalytic converters at his Worth Township home.

The Cook County Jail in Chicago is seen here on April 30, 2020. (Zbigniew Bzdak/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service/Getty Images)

The Cook County Sheriff’s Office this week released surveillance video of the September 2022 incident, which shows a man speaking to the officer and another guard before the officer, identified by sheriff’s office as 44-year-old Richard Smith, begins punching the man.

Inmates at the Cook County, Ill., jail vote in a local election at the jail's Division 11 Chapel on Saturday, Feb. 18, 2023, in Chicago. (AP Photo / Charles Rex Arbogast)
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Detainees awaiting trial or serving misdemeanor sentences retain the right to vote, but face barriers to exercising it in many parts of the U.S. Cook County Jail, with more than 5,500 inmates and detainees, is one of the largest jails in the nation.

(WTTW News)

Guns classified by the state of Illinois as "assault weapons" have been banned since Jan. 11. That means that hundreds — perhaps thousands — of guns can no longer be legally sold in Illinois. Those who already own guns and ammunition covered by the ban can keep them; they must be registered with the state.

Illinois lawmakers are pressing forward with an attempt to ban certain firearms they describe as assault weapons, but gun rights advocates say it’s a fruitless effort that will be tossed by the courts.

(CNN)

There are now 533 confirmed monkeypox cases in Illinois. And one of those cases was confirmed last week in Cook County Jail. Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart’s office said the individual is believed to have contracted the virus in the community prior to being ordered into custody.

(WTTW News)

In the county’s electronic monitoring program administered by Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart’s office, defendants wear an ankle monitor equipped with GPS and cellular tower tracking technology. Some say the readings are not always accurate, leading to incorrect reports of violations. 

Sen. Dick Durbin chairs a Senate committee hearing on carjackings on March 1, 2022. (WTTW News)
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Both locally and nationally, carjackings are on the rise. In Chicago, they have tripled over the last decade, according to the Cook County sheriff’s office. Other cities including New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. have also seen similar upticks.

In this undated file photo provided by the Cook County Sheriff's Office, authorities exhume a box with the remains of unidentified victims of serial killer John Wayne Gacy, who was convicted of killing 33 young men and boys in the Chicago area in the 1970s. (AP Photo/Cook County Sheriff's Office, File)

Francis Wayne Alexander would have been 21 or 22 years old when Gacy killed him sometime between early 1976 and early 1977, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said at a news conference in announcing the identification of Alexander’s remains.

Cook County carjackings are on the rise once again and are on track to be the worst in two decades, according to the Cook County Sheriff’s Office. (WTTW News)

In March, a task force was formed by the Chicago Police Department, the Cook County Sheriff’s Office, the Illinois State Police, and others to try and put the brakes on carjackings.

Angela Martin-Fields speaks about her mother Viola Martin, who has been missing since 2009. (WTTW News)

Black women and girls in the U.S. are disproportionately at risk for abuse, exploitation and homicide. In the Chicago area, an alarming number of Black women and girls have gone missing. Can a new initiative help find them?