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| Early release would save $153 million |
| By illinoistimes.com - Patrick Yeagle |
| Published: 04/19/2012 |
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Illinois -- Putting a halt to early prison release in Illinois has cost the state $153 million a year, says one prison reform advocate. Meanwhile, inmates complain of cockroaches in their cells and a lack of rehabilitative programs. State lawmakers met last week to discuss reinstating good conduct credits in response to overcrowding, budget constraints and reports of poor prison conditions. Gov. Pat Quinn suspended good conduct credits for prisoners in December 2009 following reports of a supposedly secret program that let inmates out after serving only a few weeks in prison, and he has largely stayed silent about the issue since then. Last week’s meeting of the House Judiciary II Committee in Chicago marked a rare occasion on which members of Quinn’s administration have spoken publicly about overcrowding. Toni Irving, Quinn’s deputy chief of staff, told Illinois Times after the hearing that Quinn is evaluating several options to deal with overcrowding, but he is waiting for the legislature to act on the issue. “Because they set the budget, it would be ridiculous for the governor’s office to try to create programs that are dependent upon certain kinds of funding,” Irving said. She said the Illinois Department of Corrections must decide what overcrowding solutions are “possible and feasible,” while the legislature must approve the funding. But Malcolm Young, director of the Program for Prison Reentry Strategies at Northwestern University’s Bluhm Legal Clinic, says the solution is simple and cheap: reinstate good conduct credits for inmates. Since Quinn suspended the credits, the state’s prison population has hovered around a record high of 49,000 – about 4,000 more inmates than previously. Those extra 4,000 inmates are costing the state $153 million each year, Young said. During the hearing, Young described prison conditions at the Vienna Correctional Center, as documented in reports by the John Howard Association, a Chicago-based prison watchdog group. In the Vienna prison, inmates complained of mice and cockroaches, broken light fixtures, a lack of rehabilitation programs and other problems. Read More. |
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