Budget crunches! Make us lucky?

[IrishQueen]

I am just wondering what all of you think about these huge budget crunches our Governor will have to make up for and if you think we could be so lucky as to get early release because of them? He will have to make up for millions of dollars he expected to have and he isn't there. It is weird, but I think I pay attention to budget matters more than the presidential election anymore.

[joshsmom]

I just got my E-Illinois Newsletter and it said the Govenor is asking lawwmakers to choose schools over prisons. I think he wants to close more prisons and use the money to build schools, do you think that may mean early releases?

[lizzi0067]

What newsletter do you get...Id like to read it also...where do you sign up for it?

[joshsmom]

Go to the state of Illinois website and there is a pic of the Guv and it says E Illinois newsletter and you check what you want information on and how many times a day you want updates. I get one or two a day and I think I checked human services, education, anything I thought could get me prison info! Good Luck!

[jimsenglishgeek]

I think there will be early releases and I also think we'll start to see alternative sentencing, like home confinement for non-violent offenders. I read an interesting report last year which oddly enough was done, I think, by McAdory -- but I couldn't swear to it. In it he pulled no punches about the inmates doing long sentences who are costing the state thousands and thousands of dollars when THEY aren't the ones causing problems or being responsible for the high rates of recidivism. I hope someone in the Illinois legislature has the courage to push for an end to the LWOP sentence and will instead look seriously at what they do in the U.K., and the Scandinavian countries. They do hand out life sentences, so that the threat of spending one's life in prison is always there if the inmate chooses not to participate in programs to change his behavior. As I understand it, the average "life" sentence in the UK is 14 years (Rose?), and in the Scandinavian countries it is 10 years. Recidivism is extremely low. BUT -- both are committed to rehabilitative programs and life altering skills. There seems to be evidence that lengthy incarceration and get-tough-on-crime policies are not responsible for lower crime rates. Canada has also experienced lower crime rates and they definitely do not have get-tough policies, nor have they embarked on this ludicrous imprisonment binge that the United States has.

[IrishQueen]

For some reason because we have the democratic system we mess ourselves up sometimes. I did some research on prisons for a paper and the history of punishment and rehabilitation in prisons. See politicians ar elooking for a vote and we vote so often that the rehabilitation programs they tried in like the 1950-1960 time period didn't work or show signs of working because it wasn't put into effect long enough. They had it like two years and when we vote new people in they want the vote so they said the other person was not tough on crime and they put in this longer sentencing, tougher sentences, and no rehab. ding dong system we have now. No politician who looks like he is not tough on crime will get elected. I actually took a juvenile delinquency class at the community college and the teacher (who happens to be a local cheif of police in a near by community) said that if you ever notive at election time you see all these newspapers say crime rates are going up. He said it is crap. Yeah crime rates go up because populations go up. Our crime rate is actually about the same as it has been for a long time and in an economy that is slow like this and people are unemployed it is usually lower too. That is because a lot of crime committed is low grade crime like vandalism. Kids do a lot of these crimes, but when parents are laid off or unemployed they are at home and so are their kids and crime rates go down. The newspapers use the public as much as the system uses the public. It is a game to them and we all are stuck in the middle.