The governor’s office announced last week that Illinois prisons are preparing to once again introduce an early-release program.

The new program will replace one that was shut down a few years ago after The Associated Press reported that nearly 2,000 participants in the program, some of whom were violent offenders, were serving only a few days or weeks behind prison walls.

The ending of the severely flawed program caused an immediate influx in the state prison population, forcing the system to house more than 49,000 inmates in prisons designed to hold only 33,000.

In the meantime, the governor’s office began a series of closures to state prisons, juvenile detention centers and halfway houses.  I have said repeatedly that it makes no sense to shutter facilities when there is already a significant problem with overcrowding in our prisons, but that’s exactly what the governor did.

Now, to add insult to injury, the governor is re-enacting an early-release program in an attempt to combat the overcrowding issue – an issue that ending the last program created.

I still believe that it was the wrong decision to close a state-of-the-art prison like Tamms. It forced our correctional system to cram more inmates into other, already overcrowded, century-old prisons and let criminals go early. This policy seems more like a recipe for disaster.

Given the Quinn administration's disregard for the safety of employees and inmates through these reckless closures and the security concerns stemming from overcrowding and inadequate guard-to-inmate ratios, I am very worried that using this program as a Band-Aid to fix a much larger problem will do far more harm than good.  

Last week brought yet another defeat to Governor Quinn’s plan to throw people out of their jobs by closing prisons, halfway houses and juvenile detention centers across the state.

An Illinois appellate court denied the governor’s latest request to toss out the restraining order that had kept open prisons in Tamms and Dwight, three halfway houses and a juvenile detention center.

While this news means these institutions are safe for now, the governor already promised to appeal and take his facility closure plan to the State Supreme Court.

In the meantime, 135 new corrections officers were just hired by the Department of Corrections in an attempt to maintain control over the severe overcrowding issues within our prisons.  A new class of corrections officers is a great step toward combating the safety problems stemming from overcrowding.  However, the influx in staffing will prove meaningless if the 

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Illinois is the only state left in the nation where concealed carry is entirely illegal.  Last Tuesday, nine Illinois counties placed a concealed weapons question on their election ballots to try to change that.  The measure asked voters if they would be in support of concealed carry legislation.  The measure passed with an overwhelming majority in every one of those 9 counties.   

Henry, McDonough, Mercer, Rock Island, Warren, Adams, Schuyler, Bond and Stephenson counties, which spread from the northwest to the south central parts of the state, all have one thing in common:  a large population of voters interested in concealed carry legislation being passed.  And they are not the first.  This past spring, Pike County addressed a similar measure on its primary ballot and came away with an 85% approval rating.  Pike County was also the first to enact an advisory resolution in 2007 stating that if the Illinois Legislature passed any laws further restricting firearms, Pike County would deem those laws “to be unconstitutional and beyond lawful legislative authority.”  Following Pike County’s advisory resolution, 91 of Illinois’ 102 counties proceeded to pass identical resolutions. 

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