Activists ‘disappointed and not surprised’ after $181.7M of Cook County’s coronavirus relief funding spent on reimbursing sheriff’s office payroll

The budget for the sheriff’s office, which runs Cook County Jail, the electronic monitoring of detainees and a small police force, has long been a target for local activists who say taxpayer dollars for a criminal justice system that disproportionately incarcerates Black people should instead be invested in housing, health care, transportation and other initiatives. Those calls, along with similar demands centered on the Chicago police budget, were revived last May after Floyd, a Black man, died after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck.