NO EARLY RELEASE OF DRUG OFFENDERS

Gov. George Ryan has proposed freeing 4,500 prison inmates before their
sentences have run to balance the state budget. That is 4,500 people who
were arrested by the police for either possessing or dealing drugs, many of
whom were prosecuted by my assistant state's attorneys.

Court records show it takes an average of nine arrests before a defendant
is actually sentenced to prison. That is nine times that a police officer
has arrested a suspect and nine times that assistant state's attorneys
prosecuted the cases.

In each of these 4,500 cases, a judge has looked at the evidence, the
amount of drugs involved and the criminal record of the defendant before
deciding to send the defendant to prison.

To send these legally convicted and sentenced inmates back to their
community - and I know a high percentage of these inmates are from Cook
County - is not only reprehensible, but also illegal.

As the chief law enforcement officer of Cook County and the president of
the Illinois State's Attorneys Association, I hope the governor's threat is
an empty one. We have enough dealers and users on our streets without the
governor circumventing the judiciary by unleashing a small army of drug
offenders on our communities.

Richard A. Devine

Cook County State's Attorney

Chicago