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* Former US Attorney Jim Lewis writing for the Illinois Times…
Four decades ago, we began to create a new problem: mass incarceration. In 1974, Illinois had 6,000 people in prison. Now, Illinois has more than 40,000 people in prison. In the same period, other states and the federal government also grew their prisons at similar rates, so that our country now has more people imprisoned, compared to other countries, by each and every measure.
Our state filled its prisons beyond capacity (32,000), but we continued to add to our prison population. Crime rates began to decline in the early 1990s, but we continued to add to our prison population. Four governors tried to address excessive imprisonment, but we continued to add to our prison population. […]
The Illinois Department of Corrections spends $1.4 billion each year, 4% of the state budget, perhaps $35,000 per inmate. […]
Prevention requires a network of interventions in a community, focusing particularly on young people found by the school system and youth authorities to be headed toward trouble. In Peoria, this is their “Don’t Start” program. These interventions, together with “Don’t Shoot,” which is a deterrence program focused on adults with a history of gun violence, should save lives, families and neighborhoods. And they should prevent crime, while saving the costs of incarceration.
Diversion? Sangamon County has diversion courts for people with limited criminal activity that is traceable to addiction or mental health issues or the impact of military service. If a person completes a program of careful court supervision, there is no incarceration. In Peoria, the federal court has a 20-year-old diversion program for crimes of addiction, and this saves people, saves families and saves several million dollars in costs of incarceration.
Change? In Illinois, Gov. Bruce Rauner’s Commission on Criminal Justice called in 2015 for a 25% reduction in the prison population over 10 years, and put forth 27 steps to reduce this population. The prison population declined from 47,000 in mid-2015 to 43,000 in mid-2017, the latest year reported. Illinois is making positive changes, and the new governor is expected to make further positive changes.
Thoughts?
posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, May 2, 19 @ 9:28 am
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Stop the war on drugs. Not just cannabis. All drugs. Non violent drug use of any kind should not be a crime. Our society needs to wake up.
Comment by Illinois Resident Thursday, May 2, 19 @ 9:34 am
Yesterday’s adult prison pop was 38,335. His comment on capacity is outdated. DOC is revising the definitions for capacity and how it’s determined at the faculty. While prisons were built with a design capacity, the fact is, with double celling, most (if not all) facilities are not near “capacity.”
Hit pieces like are always disingenuous when throwing numbers around. Everyone has an agenda. And the fact is, as mentioned in the article, pop continues to decline. But maybe dig a little deeper as to why and where the real issues lie.
Comment by New Slang Thursday, May 2, 19 @ 9:36 am
==Yesterday’s adult prison pop was 38,335. His comment on capacity is outdated.==
Jim Lewis’ number was from two years ago, not yesterday.
Comment by Da Big Bad Wolf Thursday, May 2, 19 @ 9:48 am
–And the fact is, as mentioned in the article, pop continues to decline. But maybe dig a little deeper as to why and where the real issues lie.–
Please, don’t hide your light under a bushel. What are the “real issues” deep down there?
Comment by wordslinger Thursday, May 2, 19 @ 9:52 am
>>Our state filled its prisons beyond capacity (32,000), but we continued to add to our prison population. Crime rates began to decline in the early 1990s, but we continued to add to our prison population
Comment by New Slang Thursday, May 2, 19 @ 9:58 am
Diversion courts are fine. Reducing prion populations is fine. Deterrence programs are fine. None of this will address the underlying problem.
We are leaving communities further and further behind and our current solution to this furtherance has been incarceration.
We must change in two major philosophical ways if we want to truly address the problem before us:
1) We must believe that we, as a community , all benefit from collective action against poverty.
2) We must believe that prison should not be punitive but rehabilitative.
Currently, our public finds these 2 notions obnoxious despite the overwhelming evidence to support that they would drastically reduce our incarceration rates.
We believe that poverty is self-inflicted and, therefore, should be self-corrected. We also believe that anyone who commits a crime can only be dissuaded from further crimes if but we punish them enough. The evidence suggests otherwise.
No one chooses poverty and if you are born impoverished in an impoverished community, despite one’s desire to not be, it is dang near impossible to escape it. Spare me the anecdotes of that “one guy” you know who made it. Anecdotal evidence pales in comparison to the massive amounts of people and communities who are trapped in poverty because we rely on property-levied taxes to alleviate poor education systems.
We can also ostensibly view excessively high recidivism rates which illustrate that punitive deterrence has no bearing on criminal activity. When we repeatedly remove a criminal offender from a community, punish them, and return them to the same community with no skills, no alternatives, they must utilize the relationships and skills they do have to survive. That, of course, is criminal behavior. No wonder they return to prison.
So, if we want to look at IDOC as a financial burden, fine, but until we do the hard, necessary, Un-American front end work of going into our most impoverished communities with an all out assault on poverty and impoverished systems, we may as well keep paying for extra bed space in Pontiac and Logan.
Comment by MG85 Thursday, May 2, 19 @ 10:06 am
Well said, MG85.
Comment by Fixer Thursday, May 2, 19 @ 10:27 am
Send them to Iowa.
Comment by Teacher Thursday, May 2, 19 @ 10:40 am
“In Illinois, Gov. Bruce Rauner’s Commission on Criminal Justice called in 2015 for a 25% reduction in the prison population over 10 years, and put forth 27 steps to reduce this population. The prison population declined from 47,000 in mid-2015 to 43,000 in mid-2017, the latest year reported.”
Almost none of the Rauner-appointed Commission’s recommendations have been enacted into law. Data analysis by Loyola shows no relationship whatsoever between the meager state-level reforms that have been enacted and reduction of the IDOC population. Rather, the recent decline in the population is entirely attributable to fewer arrests by law enforcement, meaning fewer prison admissions. If police start making more arrests, the numbers will go up again. If policymakers fail to address the excessive length of sentences, then our prisons will always remain overcrowded. The General Assembly has yet to take up meaningful criminal justice reform, and deserves no real credit for the declining numbers.
Comment by Anonymous Thursday, May 2, 19 @ 10:56 am
Anonymous comment at 10:56am was mine.
Comment by charles in charge Thursday, May 2, 19 @ 10:58 am
Illinois is one of the least punitive states in the country which I believe is a good thing. There is a myth out there that most people in prison are in for non-violent crimes and this is just not true. Unless you are ok with reducing sentences for homicide, robbery, and sexual assault, the prison population in Illinois will likely stay pretty close to where it currently stands.
Comment by Chicagonk Thursday, May 2, 19 @ 12:03 pm
One of the main pillars of this “edifice” ?? Richard Nixon’s Controlled Substances Act of 1970, which equates marijuana with heroin. See John Erlichman’s comments prior to his death. https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richard-nixon-drug-war-blacks-hippie/index.html
Comment by Anyone Remember Thursday, May 2, 19 @ 12:09 pm
There are no guilty people in prison. Just ask them.
As for fixing the prison population problem, you better start doubling every tax rate in the state, and come up with a few new ones. Addressing poverty to a point where you make a real difference isn’t goint to be easy or cheap. Have JB put his best man or woman on it, take a deep breath and hold it, and wait for the solution to be identified.
Comment by SSL Thursday, May 2, 19 @ 12:47 pm
Chicagonk inspired a google moment and the result is this awesome report:
“Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2019″ at https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2019.html
Also, I would personally add a third philosophical change to MG85’s list:
3) We must believe that we collectively benefit from action against domestic violence.
Comment by yinn Thursday, May 2, 19 @ 1:01 pm
Chicagonk - I don’t have specifics on Illinois, but per the link yinn provided, 15% of prisoners in state prisons nationwide are due to drugs and 44% of federal prisoners are due to drugs. We all also know that the prohibition of drugs also creates a lot of violence. If people are serious about reducing high prison rates / crime in our society, the lowest hanging fruit is stop criminalizing personal drug use.
Comment by Illinois Resident Thursday, May 2, 19 @ 1:17 pm
Not only are 15% of people in prison for drugs, more people go to prison for probation violations for a drug charge. The rules for probation are pretty strict. Staying out past curfew, missing a meeting, hanging out with the wrong friends etc. and you go to prison.
Comment by Too much Thursday, May 2, 19 @ 1:41 pm
New Slang, I just retired from IDOC. I’ve worked in two Illinois prisons. BOTH have been at 97-99% full capacity with double beds. Ask the people that work in the prisons, rather than those who are in charge of the prisons.
Comment by oldhp Thursday, May 2, 19 @ 2:13 pm
oldhp - As you have worked at our prisons, does it seem logical to you that we should not be incarcerating non violent drug users?
Comment by Illinois Resident Thursday, May 2, 19 @ 2:18 pm
I support the diversion programs. It is a smart way to go.
We will still have people we want incarcerated. Read the comments about the DCFS failures with child killers. Nobody was talking about rehabilitating them.
It is not safe to think that a person locked up for a non violent crime is not violent. Al Capone was jailed for tax fraud.
Comment by Last Bull Moose Thursday, May 2, 19 @ 3:26 pm
-It is not safe to think that a person locked up for a non violent crime is not violent-
No wonder the US leads the world in incarceration with thoughts like this. Leading the world in incarceration is not something to be proud of.
Comment by Illinois Resident Thursday, May 2, 19 @ 3:59 pm
-It is not safe to think that a person locked up for a non violent crime is not violent-
It’s unjust to presume that they are.
Comment by wordslinger Thursday, May 2, 19 @ 4:18 pm
-It is not safe to think that a person locked up for a non violent crime is not violent-
By that logic, everyone should be locked up, because it’s not safe to think that some heretofore innocent people might commit violent crimes in the future.
Comment by IllinoisBoi Thursday, May 2, 19 @ 4:39 pm
The “Don’t Start” using and/or drinking program needs to start in Kindergarten and continue all 13 years (K-12) to get it into their minds prior to them wanting to use drugs or start drinking. By the time they get to High School, it is to late.
Comment by Mama Thursday, May 2, 19 @ 4:47 pm
When Quinn had his early release program IDOC classified criminals as violent or non violent based only on the current sentence. Prisoners were released despite having previous convictions for violent crimes. System no longer makes that mistake.
Plea bargaining trades lower charges and reduced time for a guilty plea. Would have to look at the original charges to determine violent or non violent. Psych evals would help.
My point is that the conviction for a non violent crime alone is not definitive that the person is not violent.
Comment by Last Bull Moose Thursday, May 2, 19 @ 4:51 pm
Last Bull Moose - Either they have evidence to charge for a violent crime or not. Evidence matters.
Comment by Illinois Resident Thursday, May 2, 19 @ 4:55 pm
non-violent offenses should NEVER lead to any prison time. Lets start with that
Comment by truthteller Thursday, May 2, 19 @ 5:33 pm
Illinois Resident- I agree that evidence matters. That is why I said to look at the original charges and a psych evaluation if available.
There are people convicted of violent crimes who would not be a threat to the general population. They might qualify for early release.
Comment by Last Bull Moose Thursday, May 2, 19 @ 6:29 pm
Detailed examination of what was behind growth in prison and what is behind recent decrease.
https://www.luc.edu/media/lucedu/criminaljustice/pdfs/prisonpopulationgrowthbulletinjune20183.pdf
Comment by Lurambler Thursday, May 2, 19 @ 6:43 pm
Last Bull Moose - The bottom line for me is I don’t have a lot of sympathy for violent offenders. We should all be protected from these folks. But the war on drugs has failed us. We are a much less safe society because of this policy. If people are having issues with any drug, it should be a health issue only and not a criminal issue. The violent underground drug market is caused by prohibition.
Comment by Illinois Resident Thursday, May 2, 19 @ 7:26 pm
Illinois Resident- We are in more agreement than you think. I would legalize and regulate most recreational drugs. Not sure about fentanyl and meth. They seem like wood alcohol, not fit for human consumption.
For starters, I would give states control over recreational drugs. Like we did with alcohol.
Comment by Last Bull Moose Thursday, May 2, 19 @ 8:16 pm
Last Bull Moose - Wow we do actually agree on a lot. I enjoyed the discussion.
Comment by Illinois Resident Thursday, May 2, 19 @ 8:55 pm