When people are released from Cook County Jail, they don’t know if they’ll have a ride home, or even what time of day they’ll be getting out. The jail is one of the largest in the country. As many as 6,000 are being held there on any given day, at different stages of the incarceration process. When people are released — whether they’ve been inside for hours, days, weeks, months or even years — they come out through a gate at the corner of 27th Street and California Avenue.
A Curious City listener noticed something just across the road from that gate: a purple canopy tent, popped up on the grassy median. Under the tent, plastic folding tables were covered with packaged snacks like chips and granola bars, bottled water and Gatorade, hygiene products and first aid kits, clothes, bus cards and cigarettes.
The question-asker has seen a group of volunteers come out to this corner to set up this supply station on a nearly nightly basis, giving out provisions for free to everyone being released.
The volunteer group is a mutual aid project known as Chicago Community Jail Support. The question-asker wondered who they were, why they were doing this and how exactly they’d managed to keep it up for so long.
The origins of Chicago Community Jail Support
In late May 2020, thousands of people in Chicago marched the streets protesting the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others. More than 1,000 people were arrested as the protests continued through the summer and fall.
A group of fellow protesters would show up at Cook County Jail to support those who had been arrested. An activist named Sam remembers meeting their friends as they were being released, offering food, supplies and a ride home after a rough night.
“People were pretty disheveled. They were pretty beat up,” said Sam, who is using a pseudonym for fear of reprisal from police. “They were hot, they were tired, they didn’t have water, they hadn’t been fed.”
This early effort was somewhat jerry-rigged, Sam said. Sometimes, this meant driving up in personal cars with a trunkful of Gatorade, water, a few bags of chips and a pack of cigarettes.
A protestor plays a saxophone while riding in a car caravan as protesters walk in the streets during a protest on S California Ave in Little Village, Chicago, Thursday June 18, 2020. The People’s Lobby, Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation, Black Lives Matter Chicago, the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression and the Chicago Community Bond Fund hosted a car caravan and rally outside the Cook County Jail to protest funding of the Chicago Police Department.
Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
But they noticed other people getting released, some who’d been inside longer than their protester friends. The makeshift group thought it felt wrong to discriminate between protesters and non-protesters. As prison abolitionists, the group believed that everyone locked up in the jail deserved help, no questions asked.
“For me personally, there was no difference,” Sam said. “People who have been doing this since the beginning … we all just really wanted to make sure everybody got home safe, and it didn’t really matter who you were.”
The group formalized as an organization, with the name Chicago Community Jail Support, later that summer. They developed shift structures and a scheduling team, built out an internal communication infrastructure, social media and a website. Through donations, they bought the purple tent and a battered old Ford Econoline van for storing their supplies. On the sliding door, a local graffiti artist painted their name, logo and social media handles in vivid blues and pinks.
Hundreds of people now work together to make jail support happen every night, at varying levels of consistency and involvement. “We get more and more together every year,” Sam said.
Years later, later releases
These days, CCJS finds that volunteers stay later than they used to. The second volunteer shift now ends at 11:30 p.m. But if they can, the group will often wait until it looks like no one else will be released for the night. Volunteers said they’re seeing people get out after midnight much more frequently. Volunteer Weston Rose said he’s a night owl and has seen releases as late as 4 a.m.
WBEZ analysis of data obtained from the Cook County Sheriff’s Department shows that the share of releases through the gate at 27th and California between midnight and 3 a.m. has nearly doubled since 2022, up from 15.46% to 27.49%.
Journalist Dave Byrnes is researching this pattern. His analysis, based on his own Freedom of Information Act requests, corroborates WBEZ’s.
“I’ve spoken to young men who say they’re afraid of going too far north on California or too far from the jail, because they’re afraid of being mistaken for or running into a member of a rival gang,” Byrnes said. “If you’re a woman being let out at 1 a.m., you might be afraid of walking the street that late.”
Byrnes’ reporting on this issue is forthcoming in the Chicago Reader.
In a statement, the Sheriff’s Department pointed to the impacts of COVID-19 and the end of cash bail, slowness in the courts and other departments, and the continued use of paper records in processing to explain releases in the early morning hours. Regardless of their potential causes, late releases present many additional challenges for both jail support volunteers and the people they are working to assist.
Rachel Lyons, a volunteer who got involved through the Chicago Community Bond Fund, helps organize the shift schedule for CCJS. She said the group is considering adding a third shift, beginning at 11:30 p.m., to be there for people getting out at times when nearby public transit has stopped running for the night and shelters and other temporary housing options are closed.
People may have been transferred to Cook County Jail from the precinct where they were originally arrested, which holds their property until they can retrieve it after being discharged. This can mean people are released without a personal phone or a wallet. Volunteer jail support drivers may be their only option for getting where they need to go. They’ve sometimes driven people as far as two hours away. Once the volunteers go home for the night, Rose wonders, “I don’t know what people do other than, like, just start walking.”
Sometimes supplies run low, and not every shift can be staffed at full capacity. There aren’t always enough drivers signed up to give people a ride home. But Lyons said it’s still valuable to be there. She sees it in the moment when people come out of the gate and spot the tent.
“I do see people’s relief. People’s shoulders go down a little bit. Their body language softens.”
Jackson Roach is an independent reporter and producer and the co-editor-in-chief of the audio magazine Signal Hill. Listen to more of their work at jacksonroach.xyz.