The Detention Center
Cook County Department of Corrections (Cook County Jail)
- Operated byCook County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address2700 South California Avenue, Chicago, IL 60608
- Size (sheriff's site)Ninety-six acres and 8 city blocks
- Population (sheriff's site)5,923 as of 11 September 2026
- Rated capacity (IDOC 2025)9,075
- Population on inspection day (IDOC 2025)6,640 (6,081 male, 559 female)
- Year built (IDOC 2025)1929
- Layout (county site)Ten divisions, a health services facility, two education departments, privatized food service and commissary
- Admissions (county site)About 100,000 a year
- DemolitionCounty site describes demolition of Department of Corrections Divisions 1 and 1A
- Jail AdministratorJane Gubser — Executive Director, named in IDOC 2025 inspection report
Source: Cook County Sheriff — Corrections · checked 2026-09-20
Transparency rating
7/10Open- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✓Beds and daily population
- ✓What it costs taxpayers
- ✗Deaths in custody — not published
- ✓PREA audits
- ✗Independent inspection — not published
- ✗Who else it holds, and for how much — not published
- ✓How to post bond
- ✓Phone, video and commissary rates
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year built1929 (IDOC 2025 report)
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds9,075 rated (IDOC 2025)
Since then
- Demolition of Divisions 1 and 1A (county DOC Demolition page); dates and cost not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Thomas J. Dart
- Runs the jailYes — the Sheriff's Office runs the Cook County Department of Corrections (Cook County Jail)
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term
- Background (sheriff's site)Former prosecutor and Illinois state legislator
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Cook County Sheriff's Office · checked 2026-09-20
The Judges
Illinois circuit judges are elected on a partisan ballot and then stand for retention every six years (60% yes needed); associate judges are appointed by the circuit judges. They are state judicial officers, not county officials. Since 18 September 2023 Illinois has no cash bail — judges decide pretrial release or detention at a hearing.
Cook County Circuit Court
- Not found
- The county's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-09-20
The County Board
They pay for the jail. The sheriff runs it.
- What they controlThe detention budget, the building itself, and the agreements that let other agencies rent its beds.
- What they don'tDay-to-day operations. The sheriff is separately elected and is the warden of the jail by state law (55 ILCS 5/3-15003).
- Note17 commissioners elected from single-member districts to four-year terms; County Board President Toni Preckwinkle.
- The boardCook County Board of Commissioners →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- Sheriff publishes daily jail population reports (OpenData archive back to 2017); the corrections page gave 5,923 as of 11 September 2026.
- Inmate locator (iic.ccsheriff.org) is linked from both the sheriff's and county's sites as the Sheriff's own locator; the locator itself did not open in this session.
- PREA page: zero-tolerance policy, reporting routes, and annual PREA reports for 2021–2024.
- Bonding page: "After September 18, 2023, Cook County Courts will no longer require people arrested and charged with crimes to pay money for their pretrial release"; older cases may still carry cash bond; 2.13% card fee.
- Phone (GTL/ConnectNetwork): $0.05 a minute local/intrastate/interstate, $0.08 Mexico & Canada, $0.13 other international; $.06 per text message.
- Sheriff has a Pricing Review Board page with 27 August 2025 meeting minutes; no commissary price list or contracts found.
- FY2026 adopted budget Volume I shows the Sheriff's Office at $764.2 million; an older county mid-year hearing document gave DOC spending of $531,351,275.24 in FY2018 and $240.00 per inmate per day.
- No deaths-in-custody record or policy found on pages opened.
- State inspection/oversight: IDOC Jail and Detention Standards Unit, inspected 17–18 November 2025: rated capacity 9,075, population 6,640 that day; noncompliances noted under 701.30 Records (pregnant prisoner restraint data under Public Act 103-0745 not timely submitted since July 2025), 701.40 Admission ("Notice of Rights and Jail Rules" not conspicuously posted), 701.120 Sanitation (graffiti, trash and debris in detention rooms), 701.130 Supervision (checks on time 88.8%), 701.140 Security (posters and clothing obstructing observation), 701.250 Commissary (no annual audit completed).
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Cook County and what it costs the people who live here. Nationally, almost 77% of the people who died in local jails in 2019 had not been convicted of anything, and suicide was the leading single cause of those deaths (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Mortality in Local Jails, 2000–2019).
How much is your sheriff — and your judge — costing you?
Your VOTE is POWERFUL.
The sheriff who runs this jail is elected. So are the county board members who pay for it.
Names verified 2026-09-20 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered