Lake County Jail Under Fire For Jail Guard Safety Concerns

According to jail guards at the Lake County Jail, unsafe jail conditions are causing very dangerous situations. A letter to the Chicago Tribune from Cass Casper, senior staff attorney for the union local, states that there is a “substantial risk of the safety of the officers” due to broken elevators and radio systems. The letter alleges nine instances in which the radios or elevators failed from November to January.

Jail guards allege they have been stuck in elevators without the ability to use their radios due to radio “dead zones.” Wait times up to 25 minutes and rescues by ladders have been reported. An officer reported that the response time to an attack in which another officer was grabbed by the throat and thrown to the floor was “severely delayed due to one of the two elevators being nonoperational.”

According to jail officials, the main elevator has been fixed and the radio system will be replaced. Lake County plans to spend more than $7 million to buy a more advanced radio system that should be up and running by April.

Lake County Jail guards say faulty elevators, radios creating danger, February 19, 2016