Prisons chief: Illinois needs rethinking on drug offenders
CARTERVILLE, Ill. (AP) - The acting director of the Illinois Department of Corrections says Illinois needs to rethink how it handles drug offenders.
Acting agency Director John Baldwin spoke at the 13th annual Southern Illinois Drug Awareness Conference, held at John A. Logan College. Baldwin said Thursday the increase in Illinois' prison population over the past four decades is largely due to a rise in those behind bars for problems related to substance abuse.
Baldwin said there should be new policies and laws to turn that trend around, The (Carbondale) Southern Illinoisan (http://bit.ly/1TWXCas ) reported.
Gov. Bruce Rauner has directed members of the State Commission on Criminal Justice and Sentencing Reform to come up with a plan to cut the prison population by one-quarter in a decade. In January, the commission released 14 recommendations.
There has already been progress on some recommendations, said Baldwin, who was appointed by Rauner in August to lead the Department of Corrections. That includes efforts between the department and Secretary of State's Office to tackle challenges in making sure a state ID is possessed by all offenders when re-entering the community.
Baldwin said government-funded programs meant to help offenders will be reviewed. He also said an inmate risk assessment is in the early stages of being applied by the Department of Corrections with a goal of giving more services to offenders who are medium and high risk, and fewer to those at low risk of being seen again in the judicial system.
The way it is now is backward, Baldwin said, with more being spent on inmates thought to be at low risk of offending again. Research shows those inmates do best with minimal system interaction, he said.
The commission's next big focus will be sentencing reform, Baldwin said. He encouraged those at the drug conference to write to task force members and ask lawmakers to back recommendations when they're presented.
___
Information from: Southern Illinoisan, http://www.southernillinoisan.com