July 15--Chicago's Archbishop Blase Cupich offered prayers to inmates during a private tour Tuesday of Cook County Jail before reflecting on the importance of compassion for the prison population.
"My hope would be to let (prisoners) know that they are not marginalized, they are important to me," Cupich said after the tour, which was led by Sheriff Tom Dart.
Cupich expressed frustration that many prisoners in Cook County are not granted timely trials. He said that this phenomenon "not only damages their lives by not having an opportunity to move forward quickly, but also I can imagine that it's a very costly kind of enterprise."
Cupich's visit, which lasted about 1 1/2 hours, aimed to emphasize Pope Francis' focus on the importance of service to the ill and imprisoned. Many of the prisoners that encountered Cupich on his tour asked him to sign their Bibles or requested that he pray for them, Dart told reporters.
Cupich praised the staff of the jail and said they treated the prisoners with respect. He also hailed a Cook County program that teaches culinary skills to detainees and said prisons should foster hope and opportunity.
"That kind of training and education is key," Cupich said. "A lot of the people that I talked to today impressed upon me that life is not an even playing field."
Cupich stressed that prisoners should not be demonized and that many of them suffer from mental illnesses.
"They get into crimes or difficulties as a result of that," he said. "It seems to me that maybe there's another way to do it."
Dart and his family worship at St. Margaret of Scotland Catholic Church on Chicago's South Side. He has been an outspoken critic of the government's lack of support for the mentally ill, calling Cook County Jail "the largest mental health hospital in Illinois." He estimates one-third of the 10,000 inmates suffer from serious mental illness.
"The vast majority of these inmates are charged with low-level crimes of survival: prostitution, trespassing, disorderly conduct," Dart wrote in the Tribune last year.
"They are, for the most part, good people who suffer from an illness beyond their control and simply need their government to have its priorities straight."
Cupich's trip Tuesday was his second to Cook County Jail; he held a Christmas Day service at the jail last year. After answering questions from reporters, he made an appeal to family and friends of those incarcerated.
"If you have a friend or family member who is here, come and visit them," Cupich said. "It does make a difference in their lives, it can be very healing for them"
Chicago Tribune's Jasper Craven contributed.
mbrachear@tribpub.com
