A survey of the criminal justice system in McHenry County reveals good news.
Based on the most recent Illinois State Police data, in 2021, crime in McHenry County hit an all-time low – lower even than 1997, the first year of available data, when the county has 90,000 fewer residents. Based on statistics, McHenry County is the safest county in Illinois with a population of 100,000 or more and the second safest county in Illinois with a population of 50,000 or more.
McHenry County has the lowest rate of overdose deaths when compared to all surrounding counties. In 2022, McHenry County tragically lost 40 residents to an overdose. This figure, however, is down from the nearly 80 residents lost in 2017 at the height of the opioid epidemic.
Our decline in overdose deaths is a departure from the experience of contiguous counties. For comparison, between 2018 and 2022, overdose deaths have increased in Lake, Kane and DeKalb counties.
Our success is a result of continuing to rely on tried-and-true methods for reducing crime. While the “get tough on crime” approach has been the object of much scorn by criminal justice “reformers,” we at the State’s Attorney’s Office and many police departments are still led, in part, by its enduring wisdom. Unflinching accountability for criminal wrongdoing, we maintain, is still in the best interest of everyone, including the defendant.
Accountability is not, however, callousness. The McHenry County justice system has led the way in Illinois on reforming its operations and intentions to meet modern expectations. In 2021, the McHenry County Sheriff’s Office, in partnership with the Mental Health Board and Community Foundation, created the Police Social Work Division. It makes social workers available to all police departments countywide to assist with individuals, such as those struggling with mental illness, and families that are more in need of a therapeutic-focused police response.
Moreover, the McHenry County court system, in cooperation with the State’s Attorney’s Office, runs two model specialty court programs, Drug Court and the first-of-its-kind DUI Court. These programs are designed to intensively treat, not punish, defendants whose charges relate to substance abuse. The McHenry County State’s Attorney’s Office also runs the first-of-its-kind Domestic Violence Deferred Prosecution Program designed to restore families and provide treatment for “situational offenders,” i.e., those offenders with limited prior arrests who have engaged in mutual, low-level violence as a means of conflict management.
Police and prosecutors are not only countering crime effectively, they are doing so responsibly. In 2022, the Crystal Lake and McHenry City Police Departments, serving two of the largest municipalities in McHenry County, used force only 30 and 33 times, respectively. The majority of force used was “open hand control” (i.e. no taser, gun, baton, etc.) while making an arrest, and the overwhelming majority of instances where force was used involved a white subject.
With respect to the integrity and fairness of criminal prosecutions, an inspection of recent appellate court decisions regarding McHenry prosecutions is reassuring. Of the thousands of cases prosecuted by the McHenry County State’s Attorney’s Office, only one criminal conviction was reversed by a reviewing court for the years 2020 through 2022. The case in question was reversed over a dispute involving a previously undeveloped and technical area of the law.
McHenry County and its commonwealth have been entrusted with so many wonderful things that are rightfully regarded with a sense of pride. I would submit, our criminal justice system deserves some consideration in this regard.
• Patrick Kenneally is McHenry County State’s Attorney.