Jailhouse Snitches; Questionable Informants; Cook County Jail | 60 Minutes Full Episodes

Orange County California and our south of Los Angeles is best known for its wealthy sprawling suburbs Tony Beach communities and Disneyland but lately it has drawn unwanted attention from the California attorney general and the US Department of Justice for the way its prosecutors use informants in its jails used correctly informants can be valuable assets to law enforcement to help bolster their cases misuse their work can backfire upsetting the scales of Justice reversing convictions and freeing guilty criminals that's what's happening in Orange County this is a story of two snitches one who remains in jail the other is back on the streets but now he he's snitching on the prosecutors he once loyally served how many times were you arrested numerous uh numerous numerous 5 10 15 over 100 let's say over 100 Mark Cleveland is a career criminal a life of drug addiction etches his face and gave him a wrap sheet nearly as textured 40 Years of petty crimes burglaries a HIIT and run how are you out because uh I uh extremely good at providing information to the sheriff's department and the District Attorney's office and have been for years Cleveland was a jailhouse informant a snitch he ratted on other inmates in exchange for time off his sentence you were able to knock how much off your sentence well 40 40 40 years because you were such a good informant yeah we met Cleveland at a hotel he keeps a low profile these days fearful that former jailmate May seek retribution for betraying them during his decades Behind Bars Cleveland said he was willing to do almost anything law enforcement asked of him because he wanted out the problem is the desperation to get out and the willingness of the district attorney to use us and the propensity for unreliability is huge I mean we want out of jail willing to do anything and willing to say anything and say anything right snitches will lie well snitches do lie every opportunity they if they need to they will it's about getting out of jail and what do I have to do to get out of jail that's the end game for everybody sure always has been did you mark Cleveland ever lie about information that you got from another inmate give wrong information wrong information other inmate no I I I'm sure that a lot of my information was probably uh maybe tainted Cleveland explains he was part of a sophisticated secret network of informant tightly organized and directed by law enforcement inside the Orange County jails he says it worked like this jail deputies would plant snitches like him near high-profile targets then the deputies guided the snitches to fish for information that might help bolster the prosecutor's cases Cleveland recalls one Deputy asked him to Target a member of the Mexican Mafia a notorious gang that rules much of the prison turf in California he said we want him on a murder and uh if you could give us any information uh on that I'll personally walk you out of the jails he told you he'd walk you out of the jail yeah and I said well I'm not in there with him he said we'll just move you and we'll put you right there with him for the most part the people that you were informing on was it a coincidence that you heard what they said or were you placed there I was place there it's something that they do he indicated it was something they do regularly well Cleveland is describing is unconstitutional the Integrity of the justice system is based on everybody following the rules if an inmate just happens to hear and pass on incriminating information to prosecutors that's okay but inmates cannot be planted and directed to gather information from someone who's already been charged with a crime if they do that they are a legally acting as agents of law enforcement which is exactly how Mark Cleveland saw himself what you see here in this briefcase is full of documents and copies of documents and notes and evidence of everything that I've done Cleveland showed us some of the meticulous handwritten copies of notes he sent to prosecutors hundreds of pages on dozens of cases and he said whenever he needed to he could call the District Attorney's office to report on his jailmates you had a direct line to the DA's office and I could get on the phone anytime I want night or day I thought you were limited on how many phone calls you could make oh you you are unless you're Mark Cleveland it sounds like you were working for the District Attorney's office I was I was working right there with Tony I I would call him up and and he loved it every time I'd call him oh you know this is great we really appreciate it Tony is Tony rakus the Orange County district attorney Mark Cleveland do you know who he is does that ring a bell I do know who he is I remember him uh having been an informant many years ago in a case or two but my memory on that actually is not that clear rakus is a former judge and a veteran prosecutor who has been reelected four times as district attorney He commands an office of 275 lawyers who handle 15,000 felony cases a year his office is now under investigation by both state and federal authorities for the way it uses and miss misuses informance in the county jails how should we take Mr Cleveland's statements that he made to us about all this I think you should assume you're talking to an informant and that if he's talking he's probably lying but this idea that you know he was part of this informant program and that he could just pick up the phone whenever he wanted and call the District Attorney's Office you're saying is not true fantasy fantasy he told us that he was deliberately placed um by deputies in the jail next to in to get information is that true no it is not true they deny deny deny they basically say we don't have an informant program there's no organized informant program this is just conspiracy theory on the part of the defense assistant public defender Scott Sanders first uncovered the existence of a secret jailhouse informant program in Orange County his suspicions peaked back in 2011 after one of the worst days in county history California Highway Patrol hey uh we've had some uh shootings over here in Sil Beach on a sparkling October afternoon 41-year-old Scott Evans de cry walked into a beauty salon and shot to death his ex-wife and seven others minutes later de cry was arrested and quickly admitted his crime da rakus called a press conference the only thing that might even approach Justice in a case like this is is for us to seek the death penalty Sanders an assistant public defender for decades was appointed to represent accused killer Scott de cry a tough job made even tougher when he learned his client had confessed to another snitch in the Orange County Jail named only as inmate F the prosecutors tried to keep the informant's true identity hidden arguing they needed to protect him after months of Relentless digging Sanders finally learned in MF was Fernando Perez a well documented prolific snitch the representations they made was that Fernando perz was just a good citizen who was looking for nothing in return didn't want anything and was just basically doing this out of the goodness of his heart and you found out he was a Mexican Mafia gang leader and had three strikes against him and was desperate to reduce time off of his he had already been he had already been convicted he was looking at a 25 to life sentence so he had all the incentive in the world to do every last thing he could do to gain favor with the prosecution something Sanders had seen before a another one of his clients also accused of murder also facing the death penalty also just happened to confess to Fernando Perez I was stunned I mean it was it was one of those moments where you kind of just look up and go what's going on here and that's really kind of the starting point that realization was kind of what propelled us forward in voluminous court documents Sanders a zealous opponent of the death penalty accused the District Attorney's office and Sheriff's Department of of illegally planting Perez in the cell next to De cry then trying to cover it up they hid Perez's long resume as an informant was Fernando Perez deliberately placed next to the cry in a jail cell Fernando Perez was not deliberately plac next to De in the Orange County Jail decry was put there on a nurse's order and Fernando Perez had already been there it seems uh from the outside like a hell of a coincidence that this guy who's a well-known and valuable informant is placed next to this high-profile Target but you're saying it was just that it was just a coincidence it was just a coincidence Scott Sanders says an amazing coincidence in a jail with 6,000 inmates da rakus insisted there was no jailhouse informant program when Mark Cleveland heard that he called assistant public defender Scott Sanders and went back to his old job of snitching but this time he began inform forming on the prosecutors he once served what did he tell you about how the jail house inform program works he said we were on to something really bad and then he started to describe things in details and the details made sense what did he tell you that was that you didn't know we were really looking at a relatively small time period and here comes Mark Cleveland and says no no it's been going on for years let me take you back to the cases simply not the case that's just not who we are we prosecute cases in a fair and ethical manner how often does your office use jail house informant not very often the informants are not uh the most reliable people around they're uh in fact unreliable and everybody knows that which is why Cleveland says he and many other inmates gathering information were rarely called to testify so if you weren't testifying what were they doing with all the information they were getting plea Bargains on them they rather than have put me on the stand they didn't want to put you on the stand no they they didn't want to put me on the stand they don't want to put any informant on the stand Tony caucus argued his prosecutors never intended to put Fernando Perez on the stand either but they did want to hear what Scott D cry told Perez about the murders prosecutors worried de cry might plead Insanity to avoid the death penalty so they placed a bug in his cell and started recording as Perez pumped him for details it's not a bad thing to get evidence that would tend to rebut an insanity defense so that a jury could hear him describing the murder and why he did it and and and what he did but the judge threw out the confession he said Perez was acting as an agent of law enforcement when he egged on to cry to tell him about the killings a failed Ploy that has delayed Justice for the families of Scott to's victims for years and what should have been a slam dunk case you had a great case with to cry you had confessions you had Witnesses you had motive why risk it and use somebody like Fernando Perez is part of your case well look we had a really good case no question about it when you listen to what it was that he had to say to Perez it was a very clear statement of what it was he was doing his intent his his malice his reasons under mounting public and political pressure the district attorney appointed a blue ribbon panel to look into what happened they describ the office as a must-win mentality they described your office as a ship without a Rudder they said there's been a failure of leadersh you know it's interesting they did say those things and they they they put that in the writing and uh but I talked to them personally and they really didn't have that to say personally it's getting around that there's some kind of a conspiracy or there's some kind of willingness to violate people's rights or to not give people a fair trial that's a false narrative that's just that's simply not true okay so clarify it for me so the public defender made a lot of allegations of all kinds of criminal conduct of terrible things and and believe me and if those things were true uh we should be jail frankly if those things were true that would be very bad but what about the allegations that the office withheld evidence the office did not withhold evidence we have not withheld any evidence he told us that even after the judge disagreed the judge ruled jail deputies working for the DA's office intentionally lied or willfully withheld material evidence about the secret informant program the judge went on to say that even if the prosecutors didn't know the deputies were hiding evidence they should have and then the judge went even further convinced to cry could not get a fair trial from Orange County Prosecutors he kicked the entire office all 275 of them off the case de cry still hasn't been sentenced and the informant debacle has led to the unraveling of a half dozen cases putting murders and thugs back on the street as for Fernando Perez in mate F his snitching paid off instead of a life in prison a judge sentenced him to spend another few years in protective custody and then he'll be released as a reward for all his snitching when many of us hear the term confidential informance or as law enforcement calls them CI we think of mobsters wearing a wire to ens snare their bosses and get themselves a better deal but there's another kind of confidential informant out there that doesn't quite fit the Hollywood image and in reality may be far more common young people many of them college students caught selling small amounts of marijuana who are recruited by law enforcement to wear a wire and make undercover drug buys in exchange for having their charges reduced or dropped altogether it's a practice we discovered that's going on across the country largely under the radar and in some cases with tragic consequences how's it going today all right it's your birthday today probably not what you want to be doing on your birthday huh what you're looking at is police footage of the making of a confidential informant narcotics Officer Jason Weber is recruiting a college student who'd been caught making two small marijuana sales to become a CI all right well you express interest that you probably want to help yourself out yeah we're always trying to go up the chain and so what we want to go is have them buy from their supplier or suppliers Weber is the chief of a 4C count drug task force in eastern North Dakota and Western Minnesota how important do you think confidential informants are to your task yeah confidential informants are really important to law enforcement across the country uh that make our jobs easier just because they are already the ones that are out there that know who the drugs uh dealers are U and uh rely on them um most of the kids that you're recruiting caught from marijuana sales uh the big majority yeah Weber's jurisdiction includes the campus of the North Dakota State College of science with some 3,000 students marijuana is now legal in four states and the District of Columbia but not in North Dakota where selling even a small amount on a campus is a class a felony with a Max maimum sentence of 20 years in prison a fine of $20,000 or both two felonies this young man Andrew sadic was caught on tape by another confidential informant making two sales for a total of $80 Weber has called sadic in before charging him to present a choice agreed to work as a CI wear a wire and make undercover drug buys from three people twice each or be charged with two Class A felonies potentially the max is 40 years in prison $40,000 F do you understand that yeah okay obviously you're probably not going to get 40 years but uh is it a good possibility that you're going to get some prison time um if you don't help yourself out yeah there is okay that's probably not a way to start off your young adult life and your career right satic took the deal Weber told us most students do part of the agreement he signed keep the whole thing strictly to himself you can't tell anybody you're working for me obvious for obvious reasons not an award-winning student of electrical technology Andrew sadic did as he was told never told any of his close friends about being an informant never called a lawyer and didn't breathe a word to his parents Tammy and John satic the satic are a ranching family still struggling with the death of their older son in a train accident years earlier leaving Andrew an only child if Andrew had told you that he was thinking of becoming a confidential informant what do you think your reaction would have been we' have gotten him a lawyer and told him no we've never heard of such a thing you know using college students for snitches or whatever you want to call them stool pigeons or I don't know what do you call them you know there's no parent that I know of who would allow their child or want their child to serve as a confidential informant to set up a drug deal yeah I mean it's too dangerous no no I wouldn't want my child to do it Lance BL is an attorney in Tallahassee Florida who opposes using young people caught for relatively minor offenses as confidential informant these kids are being recruited to do the most dangerous type of police work they're going undercover with no background training or experience they haven't been to the police academy so they are basically doing the same work as a trained undercover cop absolutely BL says he was unaware police were using young people as confidential informants until he was hired 7 years ago by the family of Rachel Hoffman a recent college graduate who was caught with a large stash of marijuana and a few Valium and ecstasy pills it was her second Marijuana arrest she was caught by the Tallahassee Police Department and told that if she didn't uh become a confidential informant she was looking at 4 years in prison she signed up and a few weeks later was sent out to make her first undercover drug buy it was to be one of the biggest in tallahassee's recent history 1,500 ecstasy pills an ounce and a half of cocaine and a gun had she ever dealt in any of those things a gun had she ever fired a gun no Rachel was a pothead and Rachel sold marijuana to her friends out of of her home but Rachel wasn't dealing in ecstasy or cocaine much less of course not weapons Rachel drove her car alone to meet the dealers in this park with $133,000 cash from the police and a wire in her purse she was to be monitored by some 20 officers but then the dealers changed the location of the deal so Rachel drove away from the police staging area and that's when things went terribly wrong the drug dealer have her out on this road um one drug dealer gets into the car with her and the 20 cops who were nearby they lost her Hoffman is 57 135 lb hofman was seen Wednesday night at about 7:00 near Forest Meadows Park they shot her five times when they found the wire in her purse and dumped her body in a ditch 50 Mi away Rachel Hoffman's tragic death turned block into an advocate he sued the city of Tal alasse and won a $2.8 million settlement for Rachel's parents and he has argued for more openness and greater protection for confidential informants ever since do you have any sense of how many confidential informants there are law enforcement is loaded with Statistics but you cannot find out any information about the number of confidential informants that are being used across this country much less the number of people are being killed or injured no one's keeping statistics no one it's a shadowy underworld is what it is we want to make more cases we want to make better cases that can get prosecuted informant can do that Brian s is a longtime undercover narcotics officer who believes a shadowy underworld is exactly what working with CI should be shadowy to protect informant's identities and underworld because that's where cops like him want informant to take them who knows the most about the dope trait is it us working narcotics no who is it the sellers the dopers S says he's worked with hundreds of informants and now trains police officers around the country on how best to use them if you had not been able personally to use confidential informance would you have been as effective nowhere near as effective you really feel you need this oh I know I would not I may have to watch a house for days or weeks to establish probable cause my informant goes in and makes a buy out of it and I have my probable cause in 5 minutes you can get indic cases quicker easier some respects safer I'm surprised you say safer because we've heard about kids who've been killed doing these operations it's a dangerous trade that they're involved in yeah they are in that drug trade they've always been facing that potential danger any informant s estimates there could be as many as 100,000 confidential informants working with police across the country and he says with just a few tragic exceptions it's a win-win a win for society and a win for the CI they have agreed to do what they are doing in exchange for something that's the bottom line when somebody comes to work for me as an informant it's their decision police tell us that this is completely voluntary and they they want to do this to get rid of the charges it's not something that college kids are standing up saying I want to be a CI it's not voluntary they're being told they're looking at prison time unless they agree to do deals for the police department and there are some important things they're not being told so what if you catch me selling $60 worth of marijuana what do you say to me to become an inform it I'll say this is the charge this is a felony do you want to help yourself out do you tell me that I have a right to talk to a lawyer no I do not I tell you you have a right to talk to a lawyer if I'm going to ask you incriminating questions if we're talking about you're becoming an informant I don't have to tell you that you have the right to a lawyer all right that's because since police often recruit confidential informants before charging them and without arresting them they're not obligated by law to read them their rights and Weber didn't with Andrew saic he told us sadic made three successful undercover drug buys as a CI half the number he'd been told was required of him but then he stopped Weber says saic was warned he would soon be charged if he didn't continue then one night a few weeks shy of graduation security cameras snap these pictures of saic walking out of his dorm at 2 a.m. on a Thursday morning a day and a half later he had not come back we got a call from the campus at about noon on Friday he went Miss still completely unaware of their son's work as a confidential informant Andrew's parents were soon on campus making a public plea for his return we love you and we want you we need you to come home everything will be okay there was searches prayer vigils and then 2 months later the worst news possible Andrew's body was discovered in a river near the campus his backpack weighted down with rocks its straps tied together across his chest did they tell you what the cause of death was gunshot to the Head a year and a half later that's about all the stic have been told no one has been charged in Andrew's death and the gun that killed him has not been found police deny he was involved in in any CI operation the night he disappeared and have suggested to his parents that he may have shot himself a possibility they say is inconceivable they're convinced their son was murdered as a result of his work as an informant and they want the confidential recruitment of young offenders as CIS to stop it's ridiculous ridiculous stop doing it slap their hands fine them put them in jail expel them I don't care stop using our kids to do your jobs Andrew saic's death is still an open investigation so neither the state agencies in charge of the case nor Jason Weber would talk about it but we did ask about putting these kids at risk Andrew stic was caught selling $80 worth of marijuana people have said to us it's just not worth it and it's not worth putting the kid in in any kind of risky situation for that little you know a drug dealer is a drug dealer whether you smell a big amount or a small amount whether you do it once or if you do it a 100 times while it's still against the law part of our duties as law enforcement is to get the drugs off the streets and to get the drug dealers off the streets so how successful is what you're doing well I think it goes back to the point if we don't try something or if we don't do that um then we're we're truly losing that the War on Drugs isn't it more important to get go after heroin meth C pain yeah our agency goes after all them I'm still trying to get at the equation you know what I mean is it worth it for marijuana yeah there again like I got to go back to you know as long as it's a crime it is my duty as a police officer to enforce criminal law we've spoken to college students who talk about how they were pressured into becoming confidential informants it felt like I had a gun to my head that part of the story when we come back we wanted to know what the law is across the country about the use of young people as confidential informance and we were surprised to discover that in all but a handful of states there is no law no age limits on who can become a CI know rules about how or even whether informants must be trained no guidelines on their protection policies are typically left up to the individual police departments that recruit and use the informance and that critics say can and has resulted in overly aggressive recruitment tactics traumatized and even suicidal CIS and situations where kids are given incentives to entrap other kids we looked at a case a narcotics unit where those charges have been leveled it's in one of of the country's best known college towns with the university itself an involved partner and funer the University of Mississippi in Oxford famously called Old Miss is known for its football its school [Applause] spirit and its Southern Charm but less than a mile from campus housed in this municipal building is a drug task force focused on the darker side of life here it's called Metro narcotics and one of its confidential informants Was An Old Miss student will call Greg who agreed to speak with us in Disguise I was uh finishing up with school one day his life as a CI began one day coming home from class I was met halfway there by men in bulletproof vest guns and uh badges around their next my initial reaction was just keep going this is no way involved with me and then until they held up a piece of paper with my name on it saying I sold LSD and I thought what on Earth I had nothing to do with this Greg who had no criminal record insists his only encounter with LSD was when a friend asked to leave some at his apartment then he says another acquaintance stopped by wearing a wire it turns out and pick the LSD up I was just on the couch watching TV and he was like oh thanks and I just said I have nothing to do with this don't than me but at the Metro office Greg says two agents threatened him with more than 20 years in prison and a felony on his record for Life unless he agreed to become an informant and make drug buys wearing a wire from 10 people who he had to find himself it felt like I had a gun to my head have you told them yet that you had nothing to do with this they almost convince you that that you're guilty I was just so so scared I was just puttying their hands did you think about the idea that you'd become a snitch I mean I knew what I was signing and I hated it absolutely it just made me sick but what made me more sick was the thought of spending 20 years in prison did you know 10 people you could buy drugs from when you signed that paper absolutely not but you don't care at the time when you sign it it's like sure you know please don't ruin my life 10 buys sounds like a lot it's virtually impossible Ken Cogan is a defense attorney in Oxford who has represented many Old Miss students who became confidential informants he says that because there are no standardized rules cops can ask for any number of buys like Metro 10 which he says is so high it creates a perverse incentive for kids to entice other kids to break the law he told us he has seen it again and again they don't know tin drug dealers and they're so desperate they will go to their friend or their roommate or their frat brother and they know this person smokes marijuana and they'll say I'm out of weed um can I get $10 worth of weed from you your personal stuff that's entrapment and uh that's not allowed under the law entrapment because that frat brother with his own marijuana was only guilty of possession a misdemeanor under Mississippi law but if he says yes gas and sells a little to his buddy he's now become a dealer a felon facing possible prison time and at that point we're not catching criminals we're creating criminals did you ever get the feeling that you were asking someone else to commit a crime that they wouldn't otherwise have committed yes I just knew somebody who would provide me with an amount who wasn't selling but I just knew that they they would cuz we knew each other and you did that yes so when you say they're creating felons this is what you mean I don't think the cops say go out and talk to somebody into doing it that wouldn't otherwise do it it's just what the kids do and look there there are some hard drugs around but the vast vast majority of cases are sale of two grams of marijuana three grams of marijuana but those small sales can add up to big numbers of arrests and numbers says Tallahassee attorney Lance block help drug task forces get grants they want to drive up their arrest numbers and it doesn't matter whether they're going after a college kid with a couple of joints in his pocket or whether they're going after a drug kingpin and the more arrests the more money the rest numbers the higher they go the better the funding I mean law enforcement is addicted to the drug war money as the crack addict is on the street to his drugs it's a strong charge we put it to undercover narcotics agent and instructor Brian s what they say is that police are in this to lift their arrest statistics to justify the grants and money that they're getting I'm in it to do what is best for my community and if having higher stats gets me more money and allows me to do more cases to then impact the drug trade in my community then that's also of a benefit Metro narcotics got nearly $55,000 in federal grants last year but most of their budget comes from the city police the county sheriff's department and Old Miss $100,000 each the head of Metro narcotics for the last 5 years has been Keith Davis seen here on an old Miss student newscast defending his unit's work with students as informance these are adults these are 18 19 20 year olds yes I get it they have young minds whatever they're out here creating felonies and hurting our communities we requested our own interview with Davis or any representative of Metro narcotics but they declined one thing we wanted to ask Davis about were charges that he and other agents in the unit were abusive to the CIS they call you and in these calls they're very aggressive and threatening and saying well we're going to come pick you up and and you're going to go to prison to the point where I was just terrified when whenever phone ring we heard similar claims from another Old Miss student who became a confidential informant after Metro narcotics accused him of selling marijuana they say your life is over if you as you know it if you don't if you tell anybody if you don't help us did they specifically say you can't call your parents they said if you call your parents we'll take you to jail once he agreed he says one of the first things the agent asked him was whether he could buy meth or heroin he told him couldn't the first8 months or so he called every single day at around the same time he called you every day for eight months every day we had heard repeated accusations about the aggressive tone of the Metro agents and then got to listen for ourselves when we obtained a tape recording of Keith Davis and another Metro agent yelling at a CI recruit they heard had made a threat to find out where they lived the first voice is that of agent Tommy Knight I don't give a where you at yes sir I'll turn this in I'll come beat the out you yes sir get that in your head wow the tape was made stitious by the CI recruit who brought it to Ken coglin we listened with him as Keith Davis made his own threat if the kid ever went to his house be the last place you ever go in your life yes sir you feel me 100% it took all I had not to come see you last night yes sir to hunt you down but I'm trying to call him down Keith Davis is the chief of this narcotics unit and he is making a death threat you know I I'm just going to let the tape speak for itself cogin sent the tape and a letter to the chancellor and attorney of Old Miss more than two years ago thinking that as a funer of Metro narcotics they should know how the unit was treating its students he got no reply and we could find no evidence that changes were made to the program at that time you know go to the store Greg told us that as he continued making undercover buys he became anxious and paranoid I would have to conceal that I'll shaking because first of all I completely detested what I was doing I didn't want to get anybody in trouble you feel ashamed absolutely because of turning in other kids yes but Keith Davis told the Old Miss campus reporter that these kids don't deserve that much sympathy let's be clear here the these people are not these innocent little college kids plain and simple the ones that are selling dope are not innocent people they're selling poison that may be true for many confidential informants but it turns out not Greg after a year and a half and he says making six of the 10 required buys Greg was charged and arrested anyway that's when his parents found out and hired cogin who researched the original evidence against Greg and came to the conclusion that the friend who brought the LSD to Greg's house in the first place had been a CI so a CI brought the drugs and a CI bought the drugs that's the way I understood it to be cogin says after he brought the situation to the attention of the district attorney the charges against Greg were dismissed all the charges were just thrown out completely and it's really important that the public have an understanding of what's going on because it's perverted Justice I've been told that a lot of these kids are not really looking at jail time in the vast majority of cases these kids would be diverted into a drug court program they'd be on probation for six months to a year and at the end if they've done everything successfully then the cases are dismissed Lance block has been advocating for laws to regulate the Recruitment and use of confidential informants across the country but he says law enforcement lobbies have opposed the reforms they want to keep the CI system as it is law enforcement people have told us we see it as a win-win the kids get a reduced or charges completely expunged and we get to arrest drug dealers but they kids that are being killed and they're arresting smalltime possessors that's a lose lose we asked Old Miss for an on camera interview while we were reporting our story our request was declined we did get a letter months later saying quote thank you for your part in encouraging a deeper look at the Metro narcotics unit and telling us that because of increased attention attention from 60 minutes and the News organization BuzzFeed changes were being made including more direct oversight of the program an audit of the program by a third-party organization policies to ensure suspects fully stand they have a choice in whether to become a confidential informant and a change in leadership at the end of September Keith Davis resigned as head of the unit he now works for the Sheriff's Department Chicago with the largest number of murders last year of any major city in the country has one of the largest jails in the country an average of 70,000 men and women pass through Cook County Jail each year many more than once and as with other big city jails most of the inmates who Cy through are either poor mentally ill or members of a gang one of the few things Republicans and Democrats agree on is the need for Corrections reform and Cook County is leading the way almost by necessity with a new approach to help break the cycle the County Sheriff Tom Dart is getting a lot of the credit a former prosecutor who's been elected and reelected Sheriff since 2006 Dart as you'll see is unconventional it was a cold day at Cook County Jail when we met Tom Dart he has redefined the role of sheriff he sees the job as not just keeping people in jail but helping some of them get out he says many Behind Bars shouldn't be there good how you guys doing several times a month Dart mingles with the men in the Jail's minimum security division all of whom have been charged with low-level nonviolent crimes what's your charge I had a violation of probation I was on probation for driving W license Revolt Dart says the jail with a population today of about 7500 has become a Dumping Ground for the poor and mentally ill what percent do you think here really shouldn't be here I would suggest conservatively that half of the people here in the jail shouldn't be here they don't they don't a danger to anybody the people in most jails and 95% of the people in this jail are waiting on a trial so everybody here are people who haven't been convicted yet so you say to yourself all right they're Presumed Innocent who is so dangerous that we need to hold them here while we're waiting on trial you had some violence a long time ago nothing a long time so nothing as he makes the rounds he sounds less like an incarcerator than a defense attorney I'm not promising you guys anything cuz never know what the hell they're going to do but I promise you we will push it the biggest problem for most of the inmates he says is they simply don't have enough money to make bail I'm trying to find out why my bonds so high how many percentage wise people are really poor and can't afford bail on any given day we have probably two to 300 people that if they came up with $500 they would leave here but we find that if you have access to money wherever may come from and frequently it's coming from your gang and if you happen to be the guy in your gang who is the guy who does most of the shootings you're a very very valuable person they want you back out on the street but you have some individual who's in here who's never been a danger to anybody he can't come up with $100 he's sitting the guy with the gun he's out the door next guy is possession of cannabis he usually turns his notes over to his top advisor Cara Smith who runs what you might call a you shouldn't be here Squad and what do you charge Reta and what they say you trying to steal some Red Bulls some Red Bull drinks Smith and her staff hold office hours looking for inmates they can help what we need to work on is trying to get your bond reduced so that you can bond out so that you can get out of here okay okay yes okay good luck all right we'll be in touch combing through cases Cara Smith discovered something disturbing they call them dead days we made up the term but we call them dead days because people spend so much time pre-trial here at the Cook County Jail that once they're sentenced to prison they've already served their term they probably spent more time here than the than the senate in some cases so last year alone we had 1,024 people who spent their entire prison term here in the co County jail but the more incredible statistic is that same group of people spent an extra 222 years of custody here in the co County Jail lengths of stay run from a week or less to eight or nine years some of the people who spend years here are the mentally ill who make up about a third of the population and are the Jail's biggest cost and do you know what your charge is today retail theft retail theft $70 worth of ground beef $70 worth of ground beef every inmate is screened from mental illness when they first arrive I would diagnosed get the franic when I was in group pal in the group pal okay we're going to make sure that you get help today if I don't get the medication that I need I know it's going to go wrong this man who also has a history of mental illness has been in and out of the jail 37 times I understand how does that happen how does someone come back to a jail 37 times what in God's name do you expect to happen with that person okay so this person's got a serious mental illness he's not being treated his family and him have been disconnected for years he obviously doesn't have a job he has nowhere to live what do you think is going to happen I'll tell you what's going to happen he will come in contact with law enforcement either because he's trying to find a place to sleep or he's trying to find something to eat and he'll be back in here it's not because he walked out of here saying listen I want to go and commit horrific crimes it's like he's trying to survive in many ways society has turned jails and prisons into mental health clinics and you're actually running one here yeah I said okay if they're going going to make it so that I am going to be the largest mental health provider we're going to be the best ones we're going to treat them as a patient while they're here it's like we are going to think differently Cook County Jail was already one of the largest mental health facilities in the country in 2012 when Chicago closed down half its mental health clinics these men the high functioning mentally ill are bust 5 days a week to a program that is now a model for other jails across the country they get Med medication visits with psychiatrists and group therapy so today I want us to continue to move forward and you're going to have to have some things that's going to take you to another level about 60% of all the Jail's Corrections Officers have advanced Mental Health Training and dart has moved new people over to the medical facilities what I did is redefine job positions and where it would have been a law enforcement position I changed it into a doctor position or a mental health position and so we've been bringing on a lot of uh doctors counselors therapists you running a jail um I I sometimes I wonder nothing exemplifies his new Direction More Than who he chose to run the jail not someone with a law enforcement background he named a psychologist to be the warden 39-year-old doctor na Jones Tapia I'm going go sell to sell who should I talk to she started as an intern at Cook County Jail almost 10 years ago and worked her way up as Warden she tries to infuse more Humanity into a pretty heartless place the maximum security Wing where she offers some tough love therapy he wouldn't let the officer's handcuff them right why is that they had to take him to the ground and cuff them are you going to keep getting into it with sad if they keep denying my right okay see you have the wrong attitude I ain't got the wrong because I'm trying to help you but you're still telling me that you're going to have issues with the staff and I can't have that so what's up to you we filmed you doing rounds like a doctor in a hospital but you talk to every single inmate that you passed yes it's because we understand the person is a person they're not what they're they're not they're charged they're not their crime and so we want to give that individual attention to as many people as we can sorry gentlemen on a walk through a medium security cell block she works on attitude adjustment trying to change their way of thinking so they don't come back here all of you guys with tattoos you might want to think about having those removed you need to cuz how are you going to get a job when you get out I mean first impression is everything you can't do that how many of you guys have kids oh my so it's not just you that's impacted by you being here your families your children to reach out to their families she's listed her phone number on the Jail's website Dart and his methods have come under intense criticism he's too soft on the inmates say some of the Corrections Officers their antagonism grew into outright hostility last year when Dart intending to be transparent about life Behind the Walls released videos to the public showing guards brutally beating up inmates Dennis Andrews the business agent at Teamsters Local 700 that represents the Corrections Officers says his members were Furious the anger was he didn't release the videos of the detainees attacking the officers you can't release a small segment of something happening without releasing the tape of how you got from point A to point B does the public have a right to see those men beating the prisoners if we aren't releasing that information then it furthers the Public's feeling that law enforcement is covering things up and that we are hiding things and and we don't have anything to hide we we have good people here is the majority but we have some people that don't and we can't shy from that because it's what poisons the well with the public after the criticism Sheriff Dart did release videos of inmates attacking staff but Dennis Andrew says that didn't improve morale he doesn't address the situations of his own staff at the jail who are being attacked daily by the attes he presumes them Innocent but he doesn't presume his staff innocent he presumes the staff guilty yes it can't be good if they think that you're not on their side you know I become puzzled when they think I'm not on their side it is the most difficult job and you start with that and then you're dealing with mental folks so they've been asked to do all sorts of things that they didn't sign up for and I am outrageously sympathetic to that what Sheriff Dart can't tell us yet is whether recidivism rates are coming down on any given day he says he releases roughly 200 people to the streets but he accepts another 200 some still the old familiar faces to improve the chances they won't return again he's introduced activities like chess lessons people said you know your chess program you know how's that work they said you know what one of the major issues we have with the people here is they don't think about consequences they just think the very first move they they're playing checkers the chess makes you think four five six moves out I can't tell you how many the guys in the chess program has told me they never thought like that in their life that their way of thinking has changed there's more than chess Dart has enlisted volunteers to offer all kinds of classes you rarely see in a jail and you can always move in closer if you want a photographer teaches inmates how to find new ways to look at the world and themselves musicians provide therapy through Rhythm and sound H well are we going to put a little Ros Italian chef Bruno Abate gives cooking lessons I'm not here just to make food I'm here to change the way you thinking to don't come back in this place anymore we say you know we touch the Bottom now we can only go up right what about your Corrections Officers do they look at you and say wait a minute this is all upside down here yeah I mean there's definitely employees here that are puzzled by me you know Sheriff goofy is outg given Pizza to all the inmates now cuz he L Sheriff goofy yes absolutely absolutely I wear it proudly people are going to say you're on the wrong side of the street that's been suggested yeah but you'll never find anybody that is more stridden and going after the bad the evil the ones that hurt people I I used to prosecute them I arrest them now in my Sheriff's Office as well but when it comes to just blindly and truly out of indifference just saying there's segments of our society that we will treat this horrifically callous way I'm not going to be party for that and if that upsets people that's fine

Channel: 60 Minutes

Views: 940,547

Keywords: 60 days in, 60 minutes, prison, jail, crime, snitching, informants, cook county, chicago, college informants, bad ideas, prison guard, true crime, prison cell

Id: eH34BP27reg

Length: 54min 31sec (3271 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 14 2023