Algie Woods, a graduate of the Cook County RAP program, sits at a desk at the Union League of Chicago.

Algie Woods was no stranger to the Cook County criminal justice system.

Continually in the system, Woods was facing a petty offense for possession of crack cocaine.

“I just wanted to get the case over with,” Woods said. “I was just looking for the quick way out. Fortunately, I was offered an I (Individual Recognizance) Bond.”

On the Individual Recognizance Bond, he was able to get into a methadone program. Still trying to beat the system, he chose to skip a court date.

“I figured I would dodge the system. I didn’t come to court,” Woods admits.

At that point, he was sent to Cook County Judge Charles Burns’ Rehabilitation Alternative Probation program, a move that he credits with saving his life.

“Judge Burns told me that I was too smart of a guy to be doing this and said, ‘Let’s turn this around,’” Woods remembers. “He said I was too old to go back and forth to prison. From that point, I started growing and learning about myself.”

Three years removed from the RAP program, Woods, now 52, is living in his own apartment in Calumet City. He obtained his first driver’s license and is working at the Union League Club in Downtown Chicago.

“I pay rent. I pay an electric bill. I pay a cable bill,” Woods said. “I gave a speech at the last RAP graduation, telling my story. I told them that you can turn it around.”

Woods credits RAP and Restoration Ministries in Harvey, which provided him with housing and food in exchange for six days of labor as he worked through a recovery program, with saving his life.

“RAP, along with Restoration Ministries, gave me a push and I will be forever grateful,” he said. “Life still shows up, but I continue to do the steps.”

Burns said courts have historically treated substance abuse cases like hospitals handling emergency room medicine.

“We haven’t wanted to deal with it. We plead it out and get out,” Burns said. “People are using, they’re selling drugs, they’re breaking into homes to support their habit. They don’t have jobs. They are sentenced and they are back out in minimal time. They are back out and they are back doing crimes because they’re addicts.

“It’s a disease that has to be treated. They are chronic substance abusers, a PC term for addicts. They can’t stop on their own, and they have no incentive to stay clean.”

Burns said since he took over the RAP program in 2010 from retiring Judge Lawrence Fox, there has been a 180-degree change in him.

“There are other issues to address than just the substance abuse. We need to get them into

treatment, but we also need to get them into halfway houses, where there is a safe and secure setting,” Burns said. “They go back to the same neighborhood and they are not going to succeed. They may be using with their spouse, mother or father, their children. They don’t have to tools to succeed on their own.”

He said the program works with the Housing Authority of Cook County to get urban dwellers relocated to the suburbs. Participants get a three-year voucher that requires them to pay one-third of the rent with the job they get.

“These people are living in River Forest and Evanston because two-thirds of the rent is promised to landlords,” Burns said.

The judge said that getting the individuals in the program, which goes by RAP for men and (W)RAP for women, working is key to any turnaround.

“They need to get their foot in the batter’s box, to get jobs,” Burns said. “Despite their background, people still need reliable employees.”

He added that the program is working on helping participants improve their credit score, noting that landlords can’t legally reject potential tenants because of their convictions, but can reject them because of their credit score.

“So instead of turning individuals down because of their seven convictions, landlords are saying it’s because of their credit,” Burns said.

“Jennifer” (not her real name) wound up in Burns’ courtroom after being found passed out in her car with her son in the backseat and crack cocaine on her lap.

“That’s how severe things were,” said Jennifer, who spoke to the Cook County Chronicle on the condition of anonymity. “It was a dark time … I knew I needed help, but I didn’t want the help. I thought I was doing OK, but that was absolutely not the case.”

Jennifer admits she tried to finesse the system and wound up back in Cook County Jail multiple times.

While pregnant with her daughter, Jennifer relapsed on methamphetamines, “but he found me,” she said of Burns.

“Helicopters and vans showed up. It was like a movie,” she said,

Jennifer was in the pregnancy ward at the jail until her eighth month of pregnancy when Burns told her she was getting a chance to not have her baby in jail. She took the offer and stayed at Haymarket, a drug treatment facility, for nine months with her daughter.

During COVID-19, step programs stopped meeting in person and Jennifer relapsed again.

“I hit rock bottom. If I had not been in Judge Burns’ courtroom, I would have died. That’s how heavy of a drug user I was,” Jennifer said. “I was hit with a wake-up call when I lost both of my kids.”

Getting another chance through the (W)RAP program, Jennifer has turned her life around. She is a supervisor for a delivery company, looking to buy a home in the southwest suburbs with her boyfriend, and working to get her kids back.

“I owe everything to drug court and Judge Burns. He didn’t give up on me,” Jennifer said. “My family didn’t give up on me, but they didn’t have the ability to make me stop. Judge Burns sat me down, said, ‘Listen to this’ and it goes from there.

“There were times I wanted to give up. I was ready to say, ‘Give me a year downstate.’ I did not believe in myself. I didn’t think I could do it. Judge Burns believed in me when I couldn’t believe in myself. He’s saving lives; he saved mine.”