* The Tribune reports today that the state’s prison system is at a record high inmate population of almost 49,000 inmates. That’s up about 3,000 from just a year ago.
The reason? A gross overreaction by the Quinn administration to political pressure…
The reason for the rising numbers of inmates over the last year has nothing to do with more offenders entering the system — it has to do with fewer getting out as the result of a backlash against a policy change by Gov. Pat Quinn that allowed the early release of about 1,700 inmates over four months.
Under fire by an opponent in a heated primary fight, Quinn in January suspended the controversial program, called Meritorious Good Time Push, after news media reports that some prisoners sentenced to short terms of incarceration were freed after as little as a few days in state prison under the program. At the same time, Quinn also suspended the state’s regular Meritorious Good Time program, which had been in place for three decades and reduced the prison time of nearly two-thirds of the state’s inmates by an average of a few months.
As a result, the prison population began rising immediately and has gone up every month since, reaching a peak of 48,731 last week. [Emphasis added]
MGT Push needed to go. MGT should’ve stayed. Oh, well. Financial troubles are piling up as the population increases…
With the Illinois Department of Corrections about $95 million behind on its bills, many prison vendors haven’t been paid for months. In some cases, fed-up contractors have stopped extending credit to prisons, causing shortages that have led wardens to barter among themselves to stay stocked with essential items like paper goods and soap.
Oof.
* More campaign-related budget trouble…
The U.S. Senate did not authorize a new funding stream for jobs programs like Put Illinois To Work (PITW) as part of a vote on welfare programs [yesterday]. The decision raises the specter that thousands of PITW workers will be laid off around the state unless Democrats in Washington’s Upper Chamber find a way to approve additional dollars in the face of Senate Republicans’ intransigent opposition.
Some 27,000 people in Illinois — most of them young, female, and poor — found $10-per-hour jobs in the private and public sector through PITW; the federal government paid for most of their wages using dollars appropriated under the 2009 stimulus bill, with the states picking up the rest. PITW was one of the most aggressive jobs programs in the country, and when the initial round of federal funding ran out on September 30, Gov. Pat Quinn committed $75 million in state dollars to keep it going through the end of November.
Quinn’s extension was a big issue on the campaign trail and was a reason the Senate Republican Leader used to justify voting against a pension borrowing plan.
* Related…
* NFLPA warns Daley, Quinn of potential lockout: With 100 days remaining until the expiration of the collective bargaining agreement, the NFLPA wrote to Mayor Richard Daley and Gov. Pat Quinn to warn that Chicago stands to lose as much as $160 million in revenue and lost jobs if the 2011 season is canceled.
* Meat On The Bones Of The Neighborhood Recovery Initiative
* Influential Ill. group gets charter school grant: The United Neighborhood Organization has close ties to Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. The group’s leader, Juan Rangel, co-chairs the mayoral campaign of Rahm Emanuel
- shore - Tuesday, Nov 23, 10 @ 11:13 am:
“Surge in Illinois prison population”-are half or 2/3 former illinois democrat politicians/operatives?
- Phineas J. Whoopee - Tuesday, Nov 23, 10 @ 11:17 am:
A gross over reaction? Boy talk about being damned if you do. But this is why Quinn should have waited till after the election to let the prisoners out. People without agendas are so much more accepting.
- cassandra - Tuesday, Nov 23, 10 @ 11:19 am:
Does DOC even have a real director or is it just a placeholder since Randle’s departure.
And what prison executive with any serious creds would take the job.
We seem to be doomed to an expanding prison population at great and escalating cost to the taxpayers and even greater cost to the mostly minority neighborhoods from which these inmates come.
Keeps the unemployment rate down, though. Prisoners aren’t counted even though they are most certainly unemployed.
- Pot calling kettle - Tuesday, Nov 23, 10 @ 11:21 am:
At the time, Quinn could have made this a focal point of his justification for a tax increase. He could have said that the program existed and would need to continue until revenue became available to properly staff IDOC. He could have flipped the blame onto others. Instead, his reaction & overreaction made him the focus of public ire.
- tired of press - Tuesday, Nov 23, 10 @ 11:38 am:
Quinn is most certainly to blame for the overreaction to MGT Push. But so is John O’Connor and the AP who confused the public about MGT Push, a program in which people were legally released about 37 days sooner than they would have been anyway. Now they, PLUS thousands of others, are being kept in prison 6 months longer.
- OneMan - Tuesday, Nov 23, 10 @ 11:39 am:
Heck he could do it now, couldn’t he. Just like he rehired that guy.
- Louis Howe - Tuesday, Nov 23, 10 @ 11:40 am:
The cost to taxpayers of the combined DOC mismanagement by the Quinn and Blagojevich administrations has cost taxpayer hundreds of millions over the last 8 years. Quinn’s latest spineless response to the decades old MGT policy is just the latest example. He appointed former DOC Director Roger Walker to PRB when he knew that Walker was incompetent and lazy. Former Director Walker, even when he was healthy, showed up to work at10:30 am, took a 2 hour lunch and left at 3pm. Quinn is a phony taxpayer advocate. God help us all.
- wordslinger - Tuesday, Nov 23, 10 @ 11:54 am:
The NFL dispute is tricky. It’s really more of a fight among owners, with the Collective Bargaining Agreement as a battleground.
Currently, players get just 60% of adjusted gross revenues. The owners tskim $1 billion of $8 billion off the top, and then the players get 60% of the remaining $7 billion.
The real beef is many big-market owners — led by Jones in Dallas, Snyder in Washington, and Kraft in New England — have big nuts to cover with new stadiums and are tired of sharing TV revenue equally with the Cincinattis, Kansas Citys, and Buffalos of the league.
They’ve tried for years to get the league revenue-sharing formula changed with no success. Jones is on record as saying he would like to form his own cable network, a la the Yankees enormously profitable YES network.
Congress and politicians don’t really have that much leverage over the NFL, as they don’t have an anti-trust exemption like baseball.
- hisgirlfriday - Tuesday, Nov 23, 10 @ 11:57 am:
I would be very curious what this DOC overpopulation is doing to county jail overpopulation if anything. It would seem like something like this could have a trickle-down effect of pain and budget complications.
- S - Tuesday, Nov 23, 10 @ 12:53 pm:
The state awarded UNO $98 million in 2009 to build 8 new schools. Education Week stated, “That’s believed to be the largest grant of public capital funds to a U.S. charter school operator.”
Now we’re giving them another $25 million for 1?
Something seems off there. Really, really off.
- MrJM - Tuesday, Nov 23, 10 @ 1:40 pm:
They should bring back the Meritorious Good Time program but tweak it so that the wheels move a tich more quickly for low-level offenders. That way MGT could have some of the MGTP benefits without the MGTP stigma.
– MrJM
- moby - Tuesday, Nov 23, 10 @ 2:36 pm:
I hate to say it, but if MGT bit the dust, and if the prison population is growing, it is partly because of this blog. You and your commentators were merciless in your attacks on Quinn and Randle, and were speaking far in advance ofl the facts. (The facts show NO secrets, NO danger to the public, NO scandal.) Yes, Quinn was weak, and it almost cost him the election, but the press bungled the whole thing too, and now the citizens are paying the price, literally!
- S - Tuesday, Nov 23, 10 @ 3:04 pm:
That was directed at moby, not Rich.
Just saying, there WAS scandal, there WERE secrets and there WAS danger to the public. It may not have been as bad as the media and commenters made it out to be at the time, but let’s not pretend everything was done transparently and judiciously, either.
Look no further than the 1/04/10 Associated Press piece, “Ill. Governor says early secret prison release was a mistake”.
- bedwetter - Tuesday, Nov 23, 10 @ 3:21 pm:
Sure, there was a scandal, one that was fed and fueled by this blog and the columns of John O’Connor. Now it’s, “MGT Push bad, MGT good.” Where was that nuance in Jan-May of this year. Media types were hungry for a scandal and Rich et al. Obliged them. Read Malcolm Young’s report on MGT Push.
- Ghost - Tuesday, Nov 23, 10 @ 3:51 pm:
if only we had a brand new empty prison ready to go that we could start using to house some of the inmates….
- tired of press - Tuesday, Nov 23, 10 @ 4:41 pm:
And since we couldn’t afford to open that empty prison even in boom times, then it will be so easy to open it now. If we could only raise taxes to pay for our stupid and ineffective criminal justice policies then we would be all set….
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Tuesday, Nov 23, 10 @ 4:41 pm:
bedwetter -
You can’t blame the scandal on Capitolfax.
As always, in this case the scandal result not from the mistakes that were made, but how the Quinn Team reacted to them…or as some perceived, obfuscated them and denied culpability.
Can anyone give a straight answer yet as to who made the decision to enhance the early release program?
- S - Tuesday, Nov 23, 10 @ 5:16 pm:
I’ve read both the Erickson Commission’s report and Malcolm Young’s report as well as Alison Lawrence’s report that Young cites, among others.
Erickson’s report is factual, save the 1 page conclusion on page 19 which is basically opinion.
Young’s report becomes a slanted opinion piece from the moment he begins selectively arguing facts and misrepresenting what some of his source material actually says/supports.
It’s surprisingly aggressive and biased for something carrying a University’s logo on it.
He does an excellent job at detailing the history, purpose and acceptable application of good-time credits.
Where the “report” falters is in stretching too far while deriding certain groups and individuals the author seeks to make look bad instead of disproving.
That’s when Young becomes sloppy and inaccurate, and it happens at a number of points.
For example, he dismisses Erickson as, “a former judge with no apparent corrections experience”. In reality, Erickson was chosen precisely for his familiarity with and understanding of the corrections system. A simple google search would have told Young that.
This leads to the larger problem with Young’s report: he piles on at certain points in hopes that readers won’t notice the facts he omits from his own sources that may contradict his pre-determined conclusion.
He also neglects to address relevent case law (such as Braver v. Washington) that argues against him.
As an opinion piece, it’s pretty persuasive. As an official “report”, it’s surprisingly lacking.
It’s informative regarding good-time credits for the layperson, but hardly something dependable to base any sort of policy decision on.
- Amalia - Tuesday, Nov 23, 10 @ 5:33 pm:
you brought back Stermer, now go find Deanne Benos.
- Tony - Wednesday, Nov 24, 10 @ 7:58 am:
The same people who say that MGT should be reinstated are the same people who would turn around and under a microscope critique releases as a result of subsequent crimes. The media has everything to blame. Journalistic values are not what the used to be and few of them if ever thry to gather facts to get down to the real story. This debacle is a true illustration. And O’Connor won an award for this garbage?