A 37-year-old clinical psychologist will head the Cook County Jail, the massive West Side complex that county officials have long said effectively serves as the state's largest mental hospital.
Dr. Nneka Jones Tapia has been first assistant executive director running the jail's four divisions that house mentally ill inmates since she was hired by Sheriff Tom Dart in 2013.
While the jail's total population has dropped — thanks in part to better evaluation of new defendants by pretrial services and more frequent use of electronic monitoring — its percentage of mentally ill inmates has not, according to Jones Tapia.
Currently, out of the approximately 8,000 detainees, some 1,900 have been identified as mentally ill, nearly a fourth of the jail, she said.
Like predecessor Cara Smith, who the office said is being promoted into a newly created position as chief strategist, Jones Tapia said the problems can't be solved by the jail alone.
[For more of this story, written by Steve Schmadeke, go to http://my.chicagotribune.com/#...rticle/p2p-83575199/ ]
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