CITIZENS FOR EARNED RELEASE
The Time Has Come
My husband is incarcerated in the Illinois Department of Corrections. Over the past several years I have become involved with various prison advocacy groups geared toward promoting change in the DOC as well as in the state law. The IL DOC currently does not offer any form of rehabilitation to long-term offenders, instead they are warehoused in two-man cells 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You may say that this is what they deserve, however most of the current prison population will, at some point, be released back to our neighborhoods, with no skills to enable them to become productive members of society. More often than not, they reoffend. Illinois recidivism rate for short-term offenders is over 50%.
In Spring of 2006, Illinois Prison Talk joined forces with Stateville Speaks, The Long Term Prisoner Policy Project (LT3P), The Tamms Committee and Not in Vain (NIV) and created an organizational committee, The Justice Coalition, to research and provide input to the newly formed House Joint Resolution 80 Committee (commonly referred to as HJR 80). Most recently we joined forces with a newly formed organization, Citizens for Earned Release, or CER, to develop a grassroots organization and raise awareness of the mass long-term incarceration of inmates in Illinois.
Our primary mission is to influence the state legislature to bring back some form of release option for long-term offenders through successful completion of programs, such as education, job training and restorative justice. Currently there are over 5000 inmates in the IL DOC who will die in prison, should policy not change. This rise in population is due to a change in state law in 1978 which took away parole options for inmates, as well as a change in state law in 1998 which required mandatory sentences for certain classes of crimes. Prior to 1978, inmates were required to serve one-third of their sentence, or 20 years, whichever was less. From 1978 to 1998 inmates were required to serve one-half their time. Since 1998 an inmate must serve 50%, 85% or 100% of their time depending on the nature of their offense.
With the change in sentencing laws in 1998, more and more offenders are being sentenced to Life sentences or to sentences that equate to life in prison, an astounding 1500 a year. In addition, we incarcerate another 1000 a year to sentences in excess of 30 years. In ten years the prison population of long-term offenders will triple. What does that mean to you, you ask? It's your tax dollars that are used to house these offenders. In 1978 the prison population was 12,000. As of September 2006 that number has sky-rocketed to over 45,000, a 400% increase. In terms of our tax dollars, the DOC budget has exploded, from $115 million in 1978 to $1.12 billion in 2007 and it's only going to continue to grow. It costs nearly three times as much yearly to incarcerate an elderly prisoner than it does a younger one. That money could better be spent on preventing incarceration through education and youth programs.
Our proposal is a system of earned release. We do not propose to "open the gates and let them out" We are well aware that there are many offenders who should not be released, who will always be a threat to public safety. On the contrary, there are many offenders who have turned their lives around, with no assistance or incentive from the DOC, who would no longer be a threat to public safety and could very well lead productive lives. Studies have shown that offenders who have served over 20 years in prison rarely ever reoffend and never for a violent crime. The recidivism rate for older inmates is less than 2%.
Shockingly, Illinois takes the lead in sentencing their youth. As of July, 2006 there were 100 offenders in the DOC, serving sentences of life without parole for crimes committed while they were youth (less than 17 years of age, some as young as 14). Life without parole in Illinois means just that, no chance of ever being released without any legislative intervention. All Life sentences in Illinois are without the possibility of parole. There's an additional 26 juvenile offenders serving a sentence equivalent to life (meaning they'll die before they complete the term of their sentence). Imagine that, entering the prison system at 14 years of age and never leaving.
The Illinois constitution states "All sentences shall be determined both according to the seriousness of the offense and with the objective of restoring the offender to useful citizenship". This is not happening in our court system and it's not happening in our prison systems.
We have initiated a petition (both on-line and in paper form) and hope to gather 100,000 signatures by the Spring 2008 Legislative Session. This is where you can help. The link below will direct you to our on-line petition. Please take a moment to read our proposal and if you agree, please sign the petition. The information gathered from the petition will remain confidential. We can also provide a printed version of the petition, if interested.
To sign an on-line version of the petition, click here:
Citizens for Earned Release On-Line Petition
To download a PDF version of the petition to obtain signatures, click here:
Citizens for Earned Release Petition - PDF Version
*For a complete index of previous IPT editorials click here: http://xsorbit30.com/users5/illinoisprisontalk/index.php?board=92.0
Dilber MC Theme by HarzeM