* Pat Quinn just about lost the Democratic primary because of a botched early release program for violent prison inmates. Quinn overreacted and shut down all early release programs in order to avoid being whacked for crimes committed by parolees. As a result, the prison population spiked upward in 2010 and 2011. The General Assembly has sent him a new bill that reinstates a long-standing early release program that Quinn killed with the now infamous “Meritorious Good Time Push” program. The governor demanded legislation before reinstating any early release plan, but he’s not saying yet whether he’ll sign it, although the betting is that he will…

Prisoner early release programs nearly cost Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn his job two years ago, so he stopped them. Now state lawmakers have sent him a measure that once again would let some nonviolent inmates out before their sentences are finished.

Republicans say it’s a Democratic attempt to provide Quinn with political cover, arguing the governor already has the power to launch an early-release program because his administration runs the Illinois Department of Corrections. If lawmakers set up the guidelines, Quinn could blame them if a freed inmate went on a crime spree, Republicans said.

“If someone is released and they are causing a terrible crime which occurs, it’s easy to blame the legislature,” said Republican Rep. Jim Durkin, a former prosecutor from Western Springs. “To a certain extent, that could be viewed as passing the buck.”

The Quinn administration is remaining mum on the bill, with a spokeswoman saying no other person than the governor will review it.

* The bill faced Republican opposition in the House, but it passed the Senate by a wide margin. However…

The early-release bill had an easier time passing the Senate. Even Sen. Brady, who blasted Quinn on early release during the governor’s campaign, voted for it.

Brady later said his vote was a mistake, that he meant to vote “no” because he thinks the bill gives the prisons chief too much discretion and violates the spirit of truth-of-sentencing guidelines that require a prisoner to serve most of his sentence.

“I didn’t see any merit in what they were expanding,” Brady said. “It just doesn’t smell right to me.”

* As Bill Cosby used to say, I told you that story so I can tell you this one. Ever since the MGT Push debacle, Quinn has been trying to boost his crime-fighting bonafides. As part of that effort, Quinn staged a big, splashy press conference yesterday with Chicago’s mayor and law enforcement to sign the state’s new RICO bill into law…

Local authorities now have the power to go after street gangs as criminal organizations under a new Illinois law.

Gov. Pat Quinn signed the Street Gang RICO Act on Monday.

The federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act doles out stiff penalties for acts performed as part of a criminal organization, like the Mafia.

The Illinois law applies the same idea to street gangs. It takes effect immediately.

Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez is a proponent. She says it’ll help prosecutors go after gang leaders instead of treating gang crimes as isolated events. Her office has started a new division for RICO cases. More than two dozen states have RICO laws.

They may say it’s just about street gangs, but it could be used for a whole lot more than that. From the statute…

(b) “Enterprise” includes:
(1) any partnership, corporation, association, business or charitable trust, or other legal entity; and (2) any group of individuals or other legal entities, or any combination thereof, associated in fact although not itself a legal entity. An association in fact must be held together by a common purpose of engaging in a course of conduct, and it may be associated together for purposes that are both legal and illegal. An association in fact must:

(A) have an ongoing organization or structure, either formal or informal; (B) the various members of the group must function as a continuing unit, even if the group changes membership by gaining or losing members over time; and (C) have an ascertainable structure distinct from that inherent in the conduct of a pattern of predicate activity.

* More…

However, opponents argue the law gives Illinois’ 102 county state attorneys too much power and leaves potential for abuse.

“The fear is that politically elected people can use it politically,’’ said state Sen. Kwame Raoul, a Chicago Democrat, who voted present on the bill. He also said low-level gang members could get swept up in investigations and charged with harsher crimes. […]

The Chicago Crime Commission, a nonprofit organization that studies city crime, applauded the law and said it was long overdue. Arthur Bilek, the commission’s executive vice president, said there had been little evidence in other states of abuse of power on the part of prosecutors.

“The dangers are insignificant compared to the good that bill can bring by finally beginning to put away these vicious violent drug gangs that are really the new mafia of the United States,’’ he said

* Numbers…

The Chicago Police Department said nearly 80 percent of the city’s homicides are gang-related. It also said there are approximately 100,000 Chicago street gang members.

* More numbers…

The violence is nowhere near its historical peak of the early 1990s, when Chicago recorded roughly 900 homicides per year. But from Jan. 1 through late May there were 203 homicides, an increase of more than 50 percent over the 134 during the same period in 2011.

* Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez…

“We may convict the soldier, but we never get the general. This bill will allow us to attack gangs in a different way.”

* But…

Just as important have been dramatic changes within the gangs themselves.

“In the past the gangs were very organized from the top down,” said Sgt. Matthew Little of the Chicago Police Department’s gang enforcement unit. As more gang leaders are arrested, convicted and sent to prison, the gangs they left behind have become “very splintered,” he said.

Young men on the city’s streets agree.

“There is no one to control this, so it has become haywire,” said Devon Tims, who identified himself as one of the Chicago Vice Lords, making him one of the city’s estimated 70,000 gang members.

So, is the state fighting the last war?