RYAN FREES NON-VIOLENT DRUG OFFENDERS TO AVOID DEFICIT

In the interest of saving money to counter an imposing budget deficit, Gov.
George Ryan wants to grant early release to 4,500 convicted criminals from
the Illinois Department of Corrections.

Prisoners eligible for Ryan's proposed release would be non-violent drug
offenders with up to seven months remaining in their sentence.

The IDOC is also looking at closing incarceration facilities to reduce
spending. The Vienna Correctional Center and the Valley View Illinois Youth
Center are slated for closure May 15, Sergio Molina, chief of the office of
communications and public service for IDOC, said. The IDOC is also
considering closing 16 other facilities.

The suggestion comes after low state revenue and $1 billion-plus state deficit.

Karen Fincutter, spokeswoman for Ryan, said, "Ryan is looking for the
measures under his control to implement to solve the budget crisis. The
governor is looking for creative solutions on how we can fix the budget
problem."

According to Fincutter, Ryan is "certainly willing to accept suggestion
from the state legislature and AFSCME on how to fix the budget problem."

Robert Bradley, politics and government professor , said early releases of
this type are not all that uncommon.

Bradley compared Ryan's suggestion to a situation that happened in Chicago
a short while ago. A federal court deemed correctional facilities
unconstitutional in their operations and, instead of spending the money to
bring the facilities up to standard, prisoners with non-violent and violent
histories were released back into the community.

This happens in other states as well, he added.

According to Molina, these offenders are usually incarcerated for less than
a year, typically seven months.

Thomas Ellsworth, Criminal Justice Sciences department chairman, said
Ryan's proposal is more of an attempt to make the public aware of the
seriousness of the budget shortfall by making people feel very uneasy and
making them feel their streets will no longer be safe.

Bradley said the public would get more interested in the issue if Ryan was
releasing violent inmates because of budget problems.

"These people [potential early release inmates] are near the end of their
sentence and it [releasing them] was determined to be another prudent
measure to reduce the operating expenses of the IDOC," Fincutter said.

According to Ellsworth, the Department of Corrections' major expense is
maintaining people in custody, which runs $20,000 per adult per year and
$30,000 per juvenile per year.

Money spent on incarcerating non-violent offenders could be spent on other
programs, Ellsworth said.

Over the last 25 years, the number of inmates has quadrupled, much of that
increase consisting of non-violent drug offenders, he added.

According to Molina, about 25 percent of all inmates are drug offenders and
there are approximately 4,500 non-violent drug offenders in the
correctional system at any given time.

In a given year the IDOC gets 8,000 to 9,000 class four felony offenders,
who are typically non-violent drug offenders, he added.

"Taxpayers are somewhat fed up with the exorbitant expenses that connect
with locking people up for short periods of time without opportunity for
treatment or rehabilitation and then coming out worse than they [criminals]
were when they went in," Ellsworth said.

The fact of the matter is the majority of these people are typically
non-violent offenders and can probably be easily assimilated back into the
community, he said.

According to Molina, an IDOC director went on record to suggest the state
investigate alternatives to incarceration for non-violent drug offenders in
general. [waiting.]

"The public generally views them [drug offenders] as not hostile, not
combative, not aggressive, not assaultive, not dangerous," Ellsworth said.

Many of these drug offenses are crimes of circumstance, he added.

The current views on incarceration are following a 30-year cycle, he said.
The cycle of public opinion moves between stringent and more relaxed law
enforcement policies.

Ryan's early release proposal could lead the way to establishing a position
with discretionary authority to release inmates when they are most ready to
be, not when the statue says they must be released, he said.

"What has really clogged up the system in the last 24 to 25 years is the
statutory requirement that a percentage of the sentence must be served
before release," Ellsworth said.

Fincutter said Ryan's proposal would not set future precedence for lighter
sentencing of drug offenders. Ellsworth said he does not think this program
will actually be implemented.

"No decisions have been made. This is strictly an option," Molina said.

According to Bradley, the IDOC measures are being used as a "poker-chip."

Ryan is offering the closures and early releases as a bargaining chip to
force the state legislature to think more comprehensively and innovatively
about the budget, he said. "This is part of an ongoing bargaining process
where you make, in a way, a threat, and then the legislature responds to
thatSIt's give and take. It's back and forth."

This bargaining has really slowed the budgetary process, Bradley said,
adding, "ISU would desperately like to find out what their upcoming budgets
are going to be."