This year’s nasty race for Illinois governor has led to misinformation about prisons and bad prison policy, according to a new report released by Malcolm Young, with the Program for Prison Reentry Strategies at the Northwestern University School of Law. Young is hoping to shed some light on a prisoner early release program that has been the focus of a lot of debate this election season.
lllinois Gov. Pat Quinn has been repeatedly criticized by the media and his political rivals for letting violent criminals out of prison, said Young. But he said that criticism is unfounded because the legal system accounts for - and even requires - good time credit for prisoners.
“The judge, the prosecutor and the defense attorneys all know how good time credits work in the system,” Young said.
Under political pressure, Young said Quinn stopped good time credit, but he said that’s just going to result in exploding prison populations, costing the state millions and resulting in even worse conditions for inmates because scarce resources will have to be spread even thinner.