Get serious treatment for convicts
People with addiction illnesses are endangering us and we need to respond. Consider these summaries of five Daily Herald stories from just a few weeks this month:
• A former Lake in the Hills woman twice accused of leaving her two daughters home alone while she visited local taverns was sentenced to two years' probation after admitting guilt to felony child endangerment.
• A 19-year-old Cary woman is facing a pair of felony drunken-driving charges in connection with a rollover crash that left a teenage friend with five back fractures.
• A 42-year-old Naperville woman was charged with child endangerment after she was found to be about four times higher than the legal threshold for a DUI when police were called after she arrived home and could not turn off her oven. Her 10-year-old son called his grandfather, who dialed 911.
• A Crystal Lake man whose drunken driving was blamed for a 2007 crash that injured himself and a passenger was sentenced to six months.
• A 22-year-old Ingleside mother faces child-endangerment charges after taking her infant children along on a heroin delivery.
Some people who likely have addiction illnesses continue to abuse alcohol or drugs and endanger either strangers or their own relatives and friends.
It's got to stop. And if those struggling can't stop themselves, government must stop them to try to protect us. Those convicted need treatment, and those who are repeat offenders, need treatment combined with longer sentences.
Since we first examined chronic drunken driving records back in 2000, we've noticed another alarming problem: many judges are too lenient when it comes to sentencing criminals who are repeat alcohol- or drug-related offenders.
On Monday, a Kane County judge accepted a plea deal worked out by McHenry County prosecutors and a defense lawyer that sentenced Union resident Michael R. Miller to eight years in prison for his seventh driving-under-the-influence conviction. He will be eligible for release in four years. He could have gotten up to 30 years, but he got four for a seventh conviction. Will he get any treatment in prison?
We need prosecutors, defense lawyers and judges, especially judges, to take these crimes and the need for treatment far more seriously.
We know the state faces a budget crisis. Gov. Patrick Quinn is set to free 1,000 nonviolent offenders. Getting so intoxicated that you can't drive or turn off an oven, anti-dui activists tell us, is no different from putting a bullet in a gun's chamber, spinning it and pulling the trigger.
Our authorities spent a lot of time and effort last week tracking down a serial bank robber with a gun, and he faces the rest of his life in prison. It's time we devoted time, energy and money to treating repeat drug and alcohol offenders. Our safety depends on it.