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to keep them from re-offending,” she says. “Forty seven percent of the offenders who are released from IDOC have been in our custody for six months or less.”

That may change soon, if some highly-anticipated reform laws have their intended effect.

Reform efforts

Though circumstances may seem dim, new laws and programs being implemented in the correctional system may offer ways to solve recidivism problems and keep short-term inmates out of prison.

In June 2009, Chicago Metropolis 2020 helped push through the legislature a law that adapts a successful juvenile justice program, Redeploy Illinois, to the adult correctional system. The Crime Reduction Act of 2009 provides money for communities to fund rehabilitation services for nonviolent offenders.

Starting in 2010, the new program keeps certain nonviolent offenders out of prison and provides services to help curb substance addiction and mental health problems.

“It’s really an attempt to change the way we think about the whole system,” says Paula Wolff, executive director of Chicago Metropolis 2020. “The way the system is set up now, we only look at the bad things: the crimes they’ve committed, the substance abuse, all of that stuff. Here, we create an instrument that forces the system to look at the good stuff: do they have any education, do they have a stable family, can they work? Here, the people running the system can think about helping the inmate become successful and not go back to prison.”

Despite IDOC’s apparent stance that overcrowding is not a concern, Januari Smith says the department “must reduce the number of offenders coming into prison.”

“It is our belief that these mostly lowlevel, nonviolent offenders can be punished in less expensive community options,” she says. “The Crime Reduction Act provides financial incentives to counties that reduce the number of offenders they send to state prisons. Funds will be given to those counties who use community-based diversion programs to reduce the number of nonviolent offenders who would have received short prison sentences.”

In the juvenile system, the program is estimated to save the state four dollars for every dollar spent and is credited with diverting 51 percent of nonviolent youth offenders to rehabilitation rather than incarceration.

The new law also creates the Risks, Assets and Needs Assessment Task Force, charged with crafting a statewide risk-assessment tool to gauge inmates’ chances at rehabilitation and reintegration with society. A personalized case plan is created for each inmate, accounting for factors such as family, skills, education, criminal history and issues with mental health or substance abuse that affect their chances of rehabilitation.

As part of his work with the CLEAR Initiative, Pete Baroni pushed through the legislature a bill to help lawmakers understand the ramifications of new criminal laws. Beginning this year, the Illinois Sentencing Policy Advisory Council will study crime trends, inmate population growth and the effects of creating new crimes or stiffening penalties. The research will include projections of how new criminal statutes would affect the prison population level and how much money each new law would cost the state.

“Information is the key,” Baroni says.

“Sometimes we make these new (criminal) laws without thinking about the consequences.”

Baroni says the system needs to change so the cycle of recidivism and overcrowding can be broken.

“They all get out, but a lot of them will end up back in prison,” he says. “We can’t lock them up forever. It’s impossible and it’s inhumane. We’ve got to deal with this.”

Lori Laidlaw, a corrections officer at Thomson and Dixon correctional centers and president of AFSMCE Local 2359 there, says it’s a festering problem that is headed for a disastrous eruption.

“It’s going to continue to snowball,” she says. “Something really bad is going to happen in the state of Illinois, and it’s going to take the deaths of God-knows-how-many people to get something done in the Department of Corrections. It’s going to take people dying because they’re burying their heads in the sand.”

Contact Patrick Yeagle at [email protected].