Prison
Individuals convicted of felony charges may be sentenced to a term of incarceration of one year or more in prison. Prisons in Illinois are administered by the Illinois Department of Corrections, a state-level agency under the jurisdiction of the Illinois Governor. If an individual convicted of a felony in Cook County is sentenced to prison, the individual is first sent to an Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) Reception and Classification (R&C) Center before being transferred to one of Illinois’ 27 prisons, based on their security classification and needs. Under Illinois’ sentencing structure, individuals are released from prison after they have completed serving their court-imposed prison sentence, minus any sentence credits they may receive for time served in jail pre-trial, good conduct credits received while in prison, or earned credits received for completing rehabilitative programming while in prison.
Information on prison populations comes from the Illinois Department of Corrections public data portal. Data on this site are based on the most detailed information available at the time of publication and are intended to show general patterns in the number of individuals from Cook County admitted to, housed in, and released from prison. For more details on the data, read our Glossary.
The number of people admitted to prison from Cook County depends on several factors: the number and nature of crimes for which people are charged, case dispositions, and the type of sentences imposed. This section shows data on people admitted to prison from Cook County.
Number of People Admitted to Prison
The number of people in prison from Cook County may vary over time, depending on changes in the number and nature of crimes for which people are charged, case dispositions, and the type and lengths of sentences imposed. This section shows data on people in Illinois prisons from Cook County.
Prison Population by Offense Level
Individuals are released from prison after they have completed serving their court-imposed prison sentence, minus any credits they may receive for time served in jail pre-trial, good conduct, or completion of rehabilitative programming while in prison. This section shows data on people released from prison to Cook County.
Time Served in Prison
