State Senate targets masturbating jail inmates, making ‘sex offender’ tag easier

It’s a daily sight being called “a pretty extreme brand of workplace sexual harassment.”

Citing a rise of lewd behavior in the Cook County Jail, the Illinois Senate on Wednesday passed a measure that would place inmates on the sex offender registry upon release if they expose themselves or masturbate in front of female staffers more than two times.

The measure cleared 56-0 with a brief debate, and must still pass the Illinois House.

Inmates would be charged with public indecency after one offense. Upon the second they’d be required to register as a sex offender. Currently, inmates aren’t required to register as a sex offender until their third offense.

“It is aimed at combating what I would say is a pretty extreme brand of workplace sexual harassment that is occurring right now, particularly at Cook County Jail. It’s a growing phenomenon of male inmates exposing themselves to female staffers and engaging in various forms of lewd behavior,” bill sponsor State Sen. Bill Cunningham, D-Chicago, said on the Senate floor.

Cunningham said there have been almost 700 cases at Cook County Jail within the last 16 months.

If an inmate is found guilty of the lewd behavior twice, they would be eligible to be placed on the sex offender registry when released from custody.

State Sen. Dale Fowler, R-Harrisburg, noted the behavior is happening not only in Cook County, and urged the Senate to consider punishment for offenders in juvenile justice centers, as well. But Cunningham, who acknowledged it’s also a problem, said juveniles wouldn’t be eligible to be put on the sex offender list.

“It’s being called acceptable and unprecedented and we have to make measures to include juvenile justice centers within this,” Fowler said.

In 2017 there were 222 detainees charged with indecent exposure, including 144 cases where the victims were jail personnel and 29 with complaints filed by public defenders at the Cook County Jail, officials said.

Cara Smith, spokeswoman for Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart’s office, said nearly 800 jail staff members signed petitions in support of the measure within hours of learning it might clear the Senate earlier this week.

She called the lewd behavior a daily occurrence at the jail.

“We are desperate for an effective tool to respond to this behavior, and the conduct is overwhelmingly engaged in by offenders facing long prison terms,” Smith said. “A class A misdemeanor, they don’t care. … It’s totally ineffective. We have tried every possible management strategy.”

Smith said the sheriff’s office isn’t taking the bill or the penalties offenders must endure lightly.

“But our staff deserve to work in an environment free of harassment,” Smith said.

Despite being accustomed to seeing lewd behavior, public defenders opposed the measure — in an effort to protect the rights of inmates.

The Sun-Times last year reported that masturbating inmates had become a common sight on the walk to and from holding cells where defense attorneys meet clients and at the jail and courthouse lockups. A letter sent to Chief Judge Timothy Evans from Public Defender Amy Campanelli outlined the problem.

In a letter Campanelli sent to Dart last year, she called it a “crisis” and called for guards to be assigned to every lockup in the criminal courthouse.

“Of late, it has become a daily occurrence,” she wrote. “Male detainees constantly expose themselves and masturbate while in the lockup behind the courtrooms.”

No other jail seems to have the same problem with public indecency on a similar scale to Cook County, according to the state Public Defenders Association and the Illinois Sheriffs’ Association.