Illinois prisons are preparing to introduce a more restrictive
early-release program to replace one that was halted three years ago
amid public outcry over inmates serving just fractions of their
sentences.
Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn shut down the former program after The
Associated Press reported that 1,745 inmates — some convicted of violent
crimes — had been released within weeks or even days of their arrival
at the penitentiary.
One of those men was convicted for brutally attacking a woman in
2008. After getting six months shaved off his sentence under the program
and spending a year in jail, he spent just 14 days in prison — and was
arrested the next day on suspicion of assault.
The end of the program caused the prison population to swell by more
than 4,000 inmates, and there are now more than 49,000 people in prisons
designed to hold 33,000. The new program is aimed at easing the
problem, the way early-out programs were previously used for decades to
manage the population.
But unlike in the old program, inmates must serve at least 60 days of
their sentence before being released. The new law also allows the
prison director to decide early release eligibility on a range of
factors, including a past record of violence, something the department
had said court rulings previously prohibited.
The Illinois Department of Corrections has started reviewing records of potentially eligible inmates.
"This will be an ongoing, careful and thoughtful process," Corrections spokeswoman Stacey Solano said in a statement.
The previous program allowed an inmate to get up to six months'
sentence credit for good behavior. The AP found that some inmates served
as few as eight days because the Corrections Department secretly waived
a minimum 60-day penitentiary stay to move inmates out faster.
The General Assembly has since put that two-month requirement into law.
Lawmakers approved the new early release program last spring, and
Quinn signed it into law. But it wasn't until this week that a
legislative committee approved rules for the program. The Corrections
Department may proceed after the rules are officially filed with the
secretary of state in the coming weeks.
"The department is committed to the responsible implementation of
sentence credit as safety and security remains the top priority," Solano
said.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the
union representing most of the Corrections Department's 11,000
employees, agrees that if done properly, good-behavior incentives such
as shaving time off sentences are sound management functions.
But AFSCME spokesman Anders Lindall said the union remains cautious.
He noted that even as the inmate population grows, Quinn is closing
two prisons the governor says are too costly to operate. The
high-security "supermax" prison in Tamms closed on Jan. 4, and officials
are planning to soon close the Dwight women's facility and shift
inmates among three existing prisons.
AFSCME has opposed Quinn on closures, as well as reducing employee headcount and penitentiary crowding.
"Given the Quinn administration's record of reckless closures,
employee layoffs, inattention to overcrowding and its previous early
release fiasco, we are extremely cautious about the prospect of a
good-time program implemented by this administration," Lindall said.
