Alternative Sentencing for Women in Cook County Under the Axe
by Megan Chapman

On New Years’ Eve 2002, Marian Hatcher disappeared and went missing for over two years. She left behind a corporate job, her five children, and violated the 18-month probation granted to her by a Cook County Court, making her a fugitive. For two years she slept in an abandoned building and did anything she could to feed her addiction to crack.

Today, Ms. Hatcher is one of many women to successfully rehabilitate and leave her addiction behind, with the help of the Cook County Sheriff’s Department of Women’s Justice Services (DWJS). But DWJS and alternative sentencing programs for non-violent women offenders may not exist much longer in Cook County. Under the 2007 county budget, proposed by Cook County Board President Todd Stroger on January 16, 2007, the over $4 million DWJS budget is cut entirely. If this drastic budget cut goes through as proposed, all DWJS services will cease to exist as of March 1, 2007.

The proposed budget cuts came as a surprise to DWJS, which has been developing a “gender-responsive” treatment model — an alternative to incarceration or traditional probation — and building program capacity for over ten years. “What is so disheartening,” says DWJS Executive Director Terrie McDermott, “is that we know that we have an answer. The system we have in Cook County makes us leaders in the nation for evidence-based gender-responsive programming. We thought we’d just keep on growing.”

Leaders in Development of Gender-Responsive Treatment

Ms. McDermott has been involved in DWJS since the program’s planning stages, when a technical assistance grant from the National Institute of Corrections (NIC) allowed them to begin developing their treatment model. Providing comprehensive treatment to the female prison population, she analogizes, is like “peeling back the skin of an onion, until you get to the root of the problem, which is trauma.”

According to Ms. McDermott, research has shown “extremely high” diagnosis levels within the female prison population, with multiple co-occurring diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, substance abuse, and depression. If these underlying conditions go untreated, women offenders are likely to relapse to drug use and other problematic behaviors.

Women in the three DWJS programs (Women’s Residential, Sheriff’s Female Furlough and the MOM’s Programs) must fit certain criteria: they must be nonviolent offenders, usually convicted of drug-related crime. “First we go through an intense diagnosis period, figure out what’s going on in each woman’s situation, and then come up with a treatment plan,” says Ms. McDermott. “We use behavior modification treatment and teach coping skills.”

Within DWJS programs, an average 89 percent of participants are diagnosed with PTSD, usually related to some history of sexual or physical abuse. “We believe that the women in our programs mirror the general female prison population,” says McDermott.

Women of Power

When she was picked up as a fugitive in July 2004, Ms. Hatcher faced a possible jail sentence of 3-5 years for violating her previous parole. Instead, she was allowed to participate in the DWJS Women’s Residential Program, described on the DWJS website as a “118-bed comprehensive therapeutic substance abuse/mental health treatment program”

“It was the best thing that could have happened to me,” says Ms. Hatcher. Through the services available at the residential program, she dealt with her addiction to crack, participating in a 12-step addiction treatment program, and also received the support she needed to help her face her family and begin to rebuild the relationships she had abandoned for over two years.

Though Ms. Hatcher graduated from the DWJS program and completed probation in May, 2005, DWJS is still an important part of her life. Hatcher is one of two successful program graduates who work for the Department as peer coordinators, providing support and assistance to other women who are now in DWJS programs. As recovering addicts themselves, they are uniquely able to help others coping with the repercussions of addiction, mental health issues, domestic violence, homelessness and broken families.

Ms. Hatcher met fellow peer coordinator Lisa Cunningham while she was in the residential program. “Lisa was what we call my ‘hope shot,”’ she says. Anyone who has spoken to Ms. Cunningham would understand what this means. A 43-year-old mother of five, she is straightforward and eloquent in relating her own life story. She began to use drugs at the age of 13 and lived as an addict for over 20 years of her life. “I have been homeless and I have been a prostitute. I have made a lot of bad choices in my life, now I am trying to make good choices for me and for my children,” said Ms. Cunningham.

Ms. Cunningham entered DWJS after her arrest for theft in January 2004. Instead of being incarcerated, she served seven months in the DWJS Female Furlough program, which allows women to live at home with their families while the women participate in day programming. For Ms. Cunningham, this meant completing an outpatient drug treatment program at Haymarket, one of DWJS’ community-based partners. “You’ve got to help yourself. You’ve got to be in treatment,” she says.

Ms. Cunningham credits the Female Furlough program with enabling her to maintain custody of her children, three of whom are underage. When she was arrested, the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) had a case pending against her to take away her custody rights. “I would have lost my kids, and without them, I might have wound up in the psych ward,” she says. By committing herself to treatment and rehabilitation and being able to stay out of jail, she was able to fight the DCFS case and win.

When she completed her treatment and graduated from Female Furlough, DWJS approached Ms. Cunningham to invite her to work as a peer coordinator. “They said that they’d been ‘watching me’ and they offered me the job. I only have my GED, but guess that they thought I had leadership skills.”

Around the same time, Ms. Cunningham was also elected president of the Women of Power Alumni Association (WOPAA), an association formed by DWJS program alumnae in July 2002. She in turn encouraged Ms. Hatcher to come out for WOPAA meetings, as she was progressing with her treatment in the DWJS residential program. Eventually, she encouraged Ms. Hatcher to run for vice president of the WOPAA. They are now two of the three elected directors of the association, together with Claudia Taylor, the Secretary Director for WOPAA.

With Ms. Hatcher’s business background (she holds a degree in business administration from Loyola University), WOPAA has grown and built its own organizational structure. The association has just been granted 501(c)(3) nonprofit status, allowing them to raise money and develop in their own right.

“DWJS is our lifeline,” Ms. Hatcher explains. We are the peer piece of DWJS programming. That’s where our focus is. But we recruit our base from within the jail and DWJS programs. We develop a relationship with women while they are in DWJS, so that we can follow up with them after their release.”

WOPAA is housed in the DWJS space at the Sheriff’s Office, and operates on an all-volunteer basis. “We have $1,800 in the bank. We are not ready to have our lifeline cut,” says Ms. Hatcher. “We don’t make any sense without DWJS.”

Fighting for Survival

Since the announcement of Stroger’s proposed 2007 budget, DWJS staff and WOPAA alumnae have reached out to community leaders and mobilized support to fight the elimination of DWJS programs. Because of the nature of DWJS services, they are linked to a broad community network, including 118 partner agencies — from Haymarket Center to Mt. Sinai Hospital — that provide treatment services to DWJS program participants at no cost to the county.

The department also culls great support from within the Cook County Sheriff’s Office, which is facing budget cuts in other services and programs as well, including cuts of 100 Sheriff’s office police officers, 230 deputy sheriffs, the elimination of the office of inspector general, and the elimination of the department of community services, which provides all community-based programs for senior citizens and children.

In a timely gesture, the Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart became an honorary member of WOPAA on January 19, 2007. The Sheriff’s spokeswoman, Sally Daly, elaborated on the importance of DWJS programs. “The department is nationally recognized for formulating programming and stemming the tide of women coming into the corrections system. Their programs have a direct effect on recidivism rates for one of the most vulnerable populations — poor women who linger in corrections.”

The Honorable Paul P. Biebel, Jr., Presiding Judge for the Circuit Court of Cook County, Criminal Division, has also supported DWJS programs over the years. “It is an excellent, well-run program,” he says, “and Executive Director Terrie McDermott is a very effective coordinator.”

Ms. Hatcher and Ms. Cunningham have been speaking at the public hearings and using their personal stories to drive their message home. Following a press conference at Operation PUSH on January 24, 2007, both were able to meet President Stroger in person. “Marian just went up to President Stroger and starting talking to him. Then I came over and introduced myself,” says Ms. Cunningham. “I hope that we were able to put a face on the issue for him.”

President Stroger’s communications staff did not return phone calls requesting comment.

DWJS supporters have made their voices heard frequently at the Cook County Board’s public hearings in the last weeks. Dr. Patricia O’Brien, an associate professor at the University of Illinois (UIC) Jane Addams School of Social Work, was one of among many speakers on the morning of January 29, 2007 at the public hearing held downtown in the County Building. “In 1997, there were no treatment services for the over 1200 detained women in Cook County,” she said, illustrating to Commissioners just how far Cook County has come in the last ten years.

DWJS is but one of many programs to face dramatic cuts or entire elimination under the proposed 2007 budget. Outside the public hearing on January 29, a crowd rallied in protest against cuts for various critical services. Many signs spoke out about cuts to health care funding and the elimination of particular county clinics. However, the most visible presence was a sea of green signs made by ASCME (Association of State, County and Municipal Employees) which stated simply, “Save Vital County Services.”

“The County Commissioners have a lot to deal with right now,” says DWJS Director McDermott. “The best we can hope for is that they absorb the information that they are receiving and make the right choices. Personally, I have a positive feeling that all the work that we have done cannot just be eliminated. We have come too far. If we are eliminated, there will be chaos.”

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