Cook County State's Attorney Eileen O'Neill Burke looks back at her first 15 months in office

CHICAGO (WLS) -- The top prosecutor in Cook County tells the I-Team she is a judge by nature and was not initially "equipped or ready for the politics that are involved in this job, and that's a big part of the job."

As the leader of the second largest prosecutorial office in the nation, Eileen O'Neill Burke says she's intently focused on acting within the bounds of the law and above all, working to keep those who commit violent crimes off the streets.

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"We make our decisions on charging and prosecution based on the law and the facts and nothing else," O'Neill Burke told the I-Team.

She said she's proud of the improvement in office morale over the past year.

"We have turned that around. We went from every single division being understaffed to now we have a waiting list of people who want to come work here," said O'Neill Burke.

Specialized training to prosecute cybercrimes, crypto cases, hate crimes, animal cruelty and more has ramped up under her leadership.

O'Neill Burke says it's the stream of domestic violence cases that keeps her up at night.

"That will continue to be a challenge until we get our domestic violence rates down to a level that we don't see an increase," O'Neill Burke told the I-Team. "We're going to address it as we go forward and make sure our victims are not afraid to come to court and make sure our victims feel heard and supported and responded to. That's why training is so vital, and that's why we created a whole special bureau of those types of cases. Those are the two areas that we have seen an increase in violent crime, domestic violence, and CTA crime, and that is where we're bringing our focus."