News

Rauner signs order to form criminal justice commission

Posted February 10, 2015 10:00 pm

By John O'Connor The Associated Press

SPRINGFIELD - Gov. Bruce Rauner continued his leadership by executive order Wednesday, tackling prison crowding by creating a commission to recommend criminal justice and sentencing reforms.

Nine blocks east of the state Capitol in downtown Springfield, the Republican appeared in the local courthouse to pay homage to Sangamon County's community-based prison-diversion program and sign an executive order compelling the panel to provide him by July 1 with preliminary options for reducing the prison population.

It was Rauner's 14th executive order on his 30th day in office, and came just hours before an Illinois House Judiciary Committee resumed justice-system revamp discussions to deal with 48,000 inmates in a prison system designed for 32,000 and to which half of all parolees return within three years.

"This is a tragedy. It is a vicious and costly cycle," Rauner said. "We need to make sure we are rehabilitating inmates so they don't commit crimes over and over again."

Rauner telegraphed his action in last week's State of the State address when he trumpeted the success of Adult Redeploy Illinois, in which counties, including Sangamon, get money to find constructive alternatives to lockups for offenders.

Rauner said it's kept nearly 2,000 people out of penitentiaries in its three years.

Although the governor is new, none of what he's complaining about is. People in and out of government, in academia and industry, have discussed these problems generally - and about Illinois specifically - for years.

Rauner was asked why another study needs to be done when reams of data already exist on computer hard drives and in bound volumes on shelves statewide.

"There's always data flowing around," Rauner said. "We need it focused, we need it concentrated, we need to make sure every interest group is reflected at the table, that the right experts are brought into bear and this is done on a coordinated, managed basis not on a disorganized basis.

"This will be done right, it will be comprehensive, and it will be done on a prompt timeframe," he added.

Notable has been Rauner's rejection of his predecessor's claim that Illinois prisons aren't dangerously crowded.

Former Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn's administration even redefined how it counted prison space, talking in terms "operational" - as opposed to "design" - capacity and counting non-cell prison space where some mostly low-risk offenders stay.

Instead, Rauner cited federal statistics Wednesday tagging Illinois lockups at 150 percent design capacity -"unsafe to both inmates and staff."

In an email, Illinois Department of Corrections Spokesman Tom Shaer said the IDOC "welcomes Gov. Rauner's effort to reduce prison population and recidivism. Recidivism in Illinois is currently 47 percent, half of those returnees commit new crimes - the other half are technical parole violators."

Shaer provided statistics, which the IDOC has given to the media for the previous two years, that show "Operational Capacity" at 49,000 inmates with the current population at 48,227. For the past five months, inmate population has ranged between 47,894 and 48,250 - according to Shaer.

"Subsequent new construction, adding cell units and other cell space - especially at Vienna Correctional Center and others - together with the practice of double-celling increased IDOC's Operational Capacity to approximately 49,000," Shaer said.

Shaer said IDOC prisons were built to house 33,000 inmates before buildings were added and practices changed to include two inmates per cell as part of double-ceiling standards.

The Herald Tribune's Pete Spitler contributed to this report.

Article Categories
News