So my entire family is leaving the State of Illinois. I grew up here, my family and friends are here, and yet my own employer has turned it into a place from which I am no longer proud to be, and in which my son is not safe.

That’s from the resignation letter of none other than the Assistant State’s Attorney (AS) Jason Poje as he quits the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office after twenty years on the job.

A few days ago I wrote about the recent Mayoral election in Chicago (Chicago swallows the Hemlock), and this resignation is just the start of what is likely to become a flood of such as good people like this realise that there no further point in fighting the system in that city.

You can read the rest of the letter here, but herewith a couple of key points:

The simple fact is that this State and County have set themselves on a course to disaster. And the worst part is that the agency for whom I work has backed literally every policy change that has the predictable, and predicted, outcome of more crime and more people getting hurt.
…
Many years ago, my family found a nice corner of the suburbs. Now my son, who is only 5, hears gunfire while playing at our neighborhood park, and a drug dealer is open-air selling behind my house (the second one in two years). 

There surely can be few things worse than knowing that the system you are in and the job you do within it, is failing to such a degree that you can’t even take care of your family. Poje goes on to point out the obvious as to why the system is now failing to protect

Bond reform designed to make sure no one stays in jail while their cases are pending with no safety net to handle more criminals on the streets, shorter parole periods, lower sentences for repeat offenders, the malicious and unnecessary prosecution of law enforcement officers, the overuse of diversion programs, intentionally not pursuing prosecutions for crimes lawfully on the books after being passed by our legislature and signed by a governor, all of the so-called reforms have had a direct negative impact, with consequences that will last for a generation.

I think he’s being optimistic in talking of just one generation.