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Rethinking Illinois’ Truth-In-Sentencing Law

Jan 30, 2014 No Comments

By Joseph Dole

Many are aware of the dire fiscal state that Illinois currently finds itself in. One of the main causes of this has been years of passing laws without any consideration of the financial burdens of their enactment, and one of the most egregious examples concerns Illinois’ Truth-in-Sentencing law.

Truth-in-Sentencing in Illinois requires that nearly all violent offenders serve 85 to 100 percent of their criminal sentences. Prior to the current Truth-in-Sentencing law’s 1998 enactment, offenders served, on average, 44 percent of their sentences. For more than a decade Illinois resisted enacting a Truth-in-Sentencing law when other states rushed to do so. Instead, Illinois increased sentencing ranges for violent crimes. The State didn’t pass its Truth-in-Sentencing law until after the federal government monetarily incentivized Truth-in-Sentencing legislation. Although this legislation was enacted in Illinois over a decade-and-a-half ago, not a single comprehensive cost/benefit analysis has been undertaken to determine what monetary effect enactment has had on the State.

Other states that enacted Truth-in-Sentencing legislation adjusted for it by reducing sentences so the average imposed sentence was about half of what it was before enactment. That way prisoners ended up serving around the same amount of time in prison and didn’t cost the state additional money. Illinois, on the other hand, failed to make such an adjustment. Instead, Illinois judges actually increased average sentences imposed or continued issuing similar criminal sentences, which resulted in longer terms of incarceration due to the newly mandated Truth-in-Sentencing good conduct time provisions. With the sentencing ranges having already been increased, Illinois taxpayers have continued to be hit twice as hard: once for the existing sentencing scheme and effectively again due to the Truth-in-Sentencing legislation.

Broken On All Sides

Jan 28, 2014 No Comments

AWARD-WINNING FILMMAKER, ATTORNEY, AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND MASS INCARCERATION THOUGHT LEADER MATTHEW PILLISCHER, ESQUIRE TALKS TO IN SEARCH OF FATHERHOOD PHILADELPHIA, PA (USA) – 24 January 2014 – Through his award-winning, riveting, and provocative film documentary, “Broken On All Sides: Race, Mass Incarceration & New Visions for Criminal Justice in the United States,” Matthew Pillischer, Esquire has become

Two vibrant character costumes stand at a busy urban intersection in New York City.

Sesame Street Goes to Prison

Jan 6, 2014 No Comments

By Dianne Frazee Walker If you dare to watch the video featured in an online kit made for child advocacy groups and prison programs for children of incarcerated parents, be prepared with a box of Kleenex handy. Sesame Street producers have done an extraordinary job of animating a puppet character that perfectly portrays a dejected

Education and Emotional Literacy with the Lionheart Foundation

Jan 3, 2014 No Comments

As its website attests, the Lionheart Foundation “provides education, rehabilitation, and reentry support to incarcerated men and women in prisons and jails throughout the United States.” Their prison-based initiatives are one of the cornerstones of this foundation, but Lionheart also supports youth-at-risk programming as well as programming for teen parents. The hub of the program

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Too Many Prisoners Dilemma

Jan 3, 2014 No Comments

By Dan Froomkin There’s a growing national consensus that, as Attorney General Eric Holder stated in August, “too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long, and for no truly good law enforcement reason.” When Holder proceeded to order federal prosecutors to stop triggering mandatory minimum sentences for some nonviolent drug offenders, that

The Prison Education Project of California

Jan 2, 2014 No Comments

By ChristopherZoukis The aim of California’s Prison Education Project (PEP) is to reduce recidivism and encourage partnerships between the state’s colleges and prisons. Currently, PEP involves six prisons and about 2,000 prison inmates–both men and women. The program is delivered via 2,000 volunteers from regional colleges and community colleges. This volunteer-based outreach program is then

New Hope At Christmas

Dec 27, 2013 No Comments

By Dianne Frazee-Walker

Most people can remember when Christmas meant getting up at dawn and running to the Christmas tree in our pajamas excited to see what was under the tree and in the stockings hanging on the mantel.

For children who have parents who are incarcerated, Christmas is not filled with visions of lollipops dancing in their heads; in fact, December 25^th is just another day without their parents and can be even more depressing than any other day of the yeImage courtesy www.oklahomawomenscoalition.org ar.

Children who are missing a parent because they are spending time in prison are not only left to deal with loneliness they feel from having an absent parent, but also face ridicule and stereotyping. Many of these lost children are told they are going to turn out just like their parent that is incarcerated.

New Hope, a program created about 20 years ago by the Episcopal Diocese of Oklahoma is taking a more positive approach for addressing the needs of children who have at least one parent in prison. Instead of reminding children they have no chance of turning out to be productive citizens, they are encouraged to pursue an education. The children are led down a different path than their parents followed.

On Dec. 21, New Hope hosted a Christmas party at Trinity Episcopal Church in Tulsa. Children whose holidays would have been filled with sadness gathered around a table arranged with decorative trimmings and assembled their own wreaths.

The church hall was filled with fun, playfulness, and laughter. Toys, gifts, and food were plentiful. The kids were entertained by making their own reindeer and treats.

Finally Out and Among the Living

Dec 17, 2013 No Comments

By John Jay Powers

Jack Powers is an inmate in the federal Bureau of Prisons convicted of bank robbery and escaping from prison. He spent more than a decade in extreme isolation at the ADX where he amputated his fingers, earlobes, a testicle and his scrotum. He has tried several times to commit suicide. “The world outside is like another planet,” he wrote from ADX. “I feel like I am trapped within a disease.” Powers is a plaintiff in a civil rights lawsuit against the federal government regarding its use of longterm solitary confinement for the mentally ill. – S.G.

After 12 long, hard years at the ADX Control Unit Supermax Prison in Florence, Colorado, I’m finally out and among the living. Oh, I’m not on the streets. I’m here among the general population of a federal penitentiary in the dry and dusty desert of Tucson, Arizona.

For a guy who has lived alone in a cement box for more than a decade, the transfer here was really something. First there was a bus and then air-service called “Con-Air” – big passenger jets flown around the U.S. by the Marshalls Service. I had the opportunity to speak with other prisoners and see a couple of cities both from land and air. It was a trip for me for sure.

When we pulled up at the pen, I was all prepared to go straight to the segregation where, once again, I’d be put into solitary confinement. Instead, a number of prison officials met me inside the door and told me that I’d be going directly into the population – into the best unit, in fact, where I’d have single cell. I was so shocked by this turn-around that I began to shed tears.

Assembly Committee Hears Ideas on Reducing Prison and Jail Populations

Dec 5, 2013 No Comments

By KTVU.com

SAN FRANCISCO — A state Assembly committee gathered ideas from Bay Area law enforcement and community representatives at a hearing in San Francisco Wednesday on how to help people avoid going to prison and avoid going back.

The purpose of the Select Committee on Justice Reinvestment session was to obtain information that could shape legislation aimed at reducing prison and jail overcrowding and increasing rehabilitation, according to committee co-chair Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco.

“I think we have a long way to go. When you have a (statewide) recidivism rate of 70 to 30, we know there’s a lot more to do,” Ammiano said after the hearing at the State Building.

The San Francisco hearing was one of a series the committee is holding around California on various prison issues.

Programs described by local experts included diversion projects, alternative community courts, gang ceasefire efforts and services for released prisoners making the transition back to their communities.

Richmond police Chief Chris Magnus and San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon told the committee that such programs make sense not only morally but economically as well.

Lady Justice and gavel on a table in a classic law library setting.

Colorado Restorative Justice

Dec 3, 2013 No Comments

Dianne Frazee-Walker is the founder of Full Circle Restorative Justice (FCRJ) for the 11th Judicial District of Colorado, Chaffee County. (FCRJ) was formed in 2006 as a non-profit 501(c) 3 entity whose purpose was to provide an alternative route for young adult and juvenile first-time offenders entering the revolving court system. The mission of (FCRJ)

News

Rethinking Illinois’ Truth-In-Sentencing Law

Broken On All Sides

Sesame Street Goes to Prison

Education and Emotional Literacy with the Lionheart Foundation

Too Many Prisoners Dilemma

The Prison Education Project of California

New Hope At Christmas

Finally Out and Among the Living

Assembly Committee Hears Ideas on Reducing Prison and Jail Populations

Colorado Restorative Justice

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