CHICAGO - A federal investigation of the nation's largest single-site county jail has uncovered serious sanitation and medical care problems, as well as violence against prisoners who clashed with guards or failed to follow commands, officials said.
Among the problems cited in the 98-page report: Old or mentally ill inmates struck by guards for dressing too slowly; inmates burning milk cartons to heat food in their cells; and prisoners rigging a dumbwaiter to move homemade weapons.
Three Cook County Jail inmates committed suicide in the first four months of 2008 alone, and others have died because of inadequate medical care, according to the report, prepared by the civil rights division of the Justice Department and the US attorney's office after a 17-month investigation.
