HEALTH
With the soaring number of people infected at the jail, many are calling for releasing as many people as possible to protect their health and public health. But some are concerned that Cook County may want to release people onto EM instead of just letting them go home. So far, Cook County has declared no plans to release large numbers of people from jail to electronic monitoring. But some counties in states like Virginia, California, and New York have implemented these policies already. Crawford has seen judges placing many people on Sheriff ’s Electronic Monitoring as a condition of their release when it's not necessary, stating, “It's not driven by the basic facts—it’s oftentimes driven by the predilections of a particular judge. And I think that, particularly in this time, it’s really important that the Chief Judge provide some tangible guidelines.” Though increased movement during the pandemic can be granted by individual judges, this would require those currently on electronic monitoring to go back to court and appeal to their judge, who may or may not currently be seeing cases due to the partial shutdown of the courts. Then the judge would have to instruct the sheriff to give movement. And “if someone does get that, it would be just one person. The sheriff has the power to give everyone movement without judicial orders,” explained Grace. These asks are part of a wider campaign by the Lawndale Christian Legal Center, Chicago Community Bond Fund, and more than one hundred other organizations to get people out of jail, grant those on electronic monitoring more freedom of movement, stop the influx of new admissions to the jail on money bonds and to EM programs, and improve access to virtual visitation and sanitation for those who remain in the jail, as rising coronavirus rates can make any form of incarceration feel like a death sentence. Their efforts have included a callin campaign to the Sheriff ’s Office, the Office of the Chief Judge, and the State’s Attorney’s Office, as well as a petition for mass release filed by the Cook County Public Defender’s Office and an emergency class-action lawsuit for the immediate release of medically vulnerable people in the Cook County Jail against Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart. Advocates hope that this moment of change in the criminal justice system can bring to light the obvious inconsistencies in the logic of electronic monitoring, namely that it treats people as both a threat and not
a threat to public safety, and the fact that it hasn't been proven to do, well, anything. “The fundamental piece about electronic monitoring in each and every situation is there is no research, there is no evidence that it has a positive impact on anything other than the bank balances and the companies that run the programs,” explained Kilgore. “No one has done research to show that this is an effective measure to do anything to change behavior, to ensure appearance in court, none of it... It's only really in the criminal legal system that people get away with policies based on assumption.” A 2014 study published in the Justice Policy Journal showed that electronic monitoring had “no effect on reducing recidivism,” and multiple other reports have come to similar conclusions. But the electronic monitoring system has been demonstrated to present numerous other concerns: it has been shown to plunge those on it into debt, call and record children without their consent, and malfunction in ways that can send many back to jail even if they never violate the conditions of their monitoring. So what does Kilgore recommend should be done? “Take them all off,” he said. “Things like being able to have medical treatment, being able to access education, being able to access employment, those conditions would make electronic monitoring more manageable. But it doesn't justify the electronic monitoring.” ¬ Kiran Misra is a writer for the Weekly primarily covering criminal justice and policing in Chicago. She last covered the 2020 Cook County State’s Attorney’s race with interviews with Kim Foxx and Bill Conway and assessments of Foxx’s record and Conway’s campaign funding.
Survival Healing
Traditional Mexican remedies to treat body aches and symptoms of the common cold BY LAURA DE LOS SANTOS
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raditional Mexican healing practices are survival medicine. The earliest Mexican settlers to the Chicago area survived boxcar living during harsh winters with home remedies such as teas, massage, and ointments. Many people living in the boxcar barrios often preferred to pay parteras (midwives) to deliver their children in the boxcar homes, where they were relegated to live, instead of the local dispensary. In Mexican Labor in the United States, sociologist Paul S. Taylor documented the opinions of many people in these communities who expressed distrust of doctors and the medicines they offered. I have been a student of traditional Mexican healing practices since childhood, and often visit Maya and Native American communities in the U.S. Raised by Mexican grandparents, I first learned these lessons around the kitchen table, listening to grandma tell me about the tea simmering on the stove. “Do you think I had time to go to the doctor’s office with six kids?” Of course not. Nor was there money for doctors’ visits or medicine. She knew that with so many people to take care for, an ounce of prevention was worth much more than a pound of cure. “Drink your tea while it’s hot.” Grandpa referred to these practices affectionately as brujerías (witchcraft). His own mother, my great-grandmother, Fidencia, brought traditional Mexican healing practices with her in 1923 when she,
her husband, and her young child, Antonio (gramps), arrived to the Blue Island boxcar camp at 135th Street. In Guanajuato, my great-grandmother had learned to sobar (massage), learned about medicinal plants, and helped bring babies into the world. Her skills helped her young family survive physically and economically as they migrated north. Traditional Mexican healing practices have survived conquest, colonization, and the professionalization of medicine because many modalities require little if any equipment, and what is needed is easily transported or easily obtained. Information is transmitted orally, without need for documentation. Although some commonly used ingredients have Asian, European, or Middle Eastern roots, they were incorporated into indigenous Mexican healing practices during colonization and continue to be used today. Many of the plants used are widely available, relatively inexpensive, and effective. I am not a medical professional, and this is not medical advice. I am not offering the cure for the coronavirus, for cancer, or for the common cold. What I am offering is some of the information I’ve learned over the years that I’ve found effective in alleviating pain and taking care of the people I love. The elements I recommend have been demonstrated to have medicinal properties that help prevent and treat various diseases. APRIL 15, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 19
