Quinn's prison release fiasco

Gov. Pat Quinn hasn't fired anyone in his administration over the flawed early release of prisoners, but he is the only one facing the voters this fall.

The Meritorious Good Time Push program was ill-conceived. The Department (of Corrections) exhibited institutional myopia: While pursuing cost-saving measures, it neglected the most important consideration — the potential impact on public safety."

— report of retired Appellate Judge David Erickson, Aug. 13, 2010

We keep wondering if the early-release debacle that freed 1,754 Illinois prisoners — some of them violent offenders — will cost a high-ranking state official his job in the administration of Gov. Pat Quinn. No, we're not talking about Department of Corrections Director Michael Randle or people in his agency who allegedly tried to undermine him. We're talking about Quinn himself, who has correctly acknowledged that the buck stops with him.
This scandal has been nothing but bad news for the governor since it broke in December. His Democratic challenger, state Comptroller Dan Hynes, nearly rode it to victory in the Feb. 2 Illinois primary. And an autopsy of the scandal issued Friday — a report from former Judge David Erickson — probably threatens Quinn's prospects in the Nov. 2 general election as well.

One of Quinn's initial responses in December was to ask Erickson to lead a committee review of early release in Illinois. The report issued Friday is Erickson's response. He said at a news conference that while early release can be a valuable corrections tool, Illinois' program had devolved into "a dismal failure" over three decades: Governors weren't on top of it, and some legislators kept urging more early releases. Erickson said the Quinn administration's accelerated 2009 program of granting early release, the so-called MGT Push, "took a broken system and made it worse."

The report documents how, last Aug. 31, the Department of Corrections inaugurated MGT Push, "replacing the 60-day minimum stay policy with an 11-day minimum stay policy" for offenders who had been sentenced to short prison terms. Over the next three-months-plus, 1,754 inmates were released under MGT Push; on average they served 36 fewer days than they otherwise would have. The report says the agency "failed to adequately notify local jurisdictions of inmates' impending releases" and concludes that the program "failed to accomplish the overriding goals of the State's Code of Corrections: protecting the public's safety and restoring inmates to useful citizenship."

The Alumni Notes from MGT Push: 685 parolees are free and compliant, 498 have been discharged, and 13 have died. But 390 have been returned to Illinois prisons, some for committing violent offenses; another 36 are incarcerated elsewhere; 32 have outstanding warrants but haven't yet been arrested; and 100 are the subjects of federal immigration enforcement.

Quinn's chief of staff, Jerry Stermer, said Friday he was present last summer and fall when the governor told Randle he was not to release violent offenders under MGT Push. Randle took responsibility for not supervising his subordinates closely enough to make sure they followed that dictum. As a result, he said, "It happened."

These kinds of government failures usually produce internecine back-stabbing, and this episode is no different. We can't say with certainty whether Quinn is too protective of Randle, or whether agency rivals who were gunning for Randle couldn't quite make him the fall guy. What we do know is that only one person tied to this mess has to stand for re-election: the boss.

Stermer would rather talk about Quinn's quick elimination of MGT Push when the scandal broke, the ongoing suspension of a similar program, and the numerous improvements that should make for a better early-release culture in Illinois. He said Quinn needs legislative cooperation to fund a $30 million overhaul of the Corrections computer systems. And, echoing Erickson's report, he said the governor wants to narrow the universe of offenders eligible for early release.

At first read, Erickson's report is an excellent map to reforming early release in Illinois. You can find the full document at chicagotribune.com/prisoners.

But tomorrow's reforms may not insulate Quinn from yesterday's failure to have such a potentially dangerous program under better management

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-earlyrelease-20100816,0,5191318.story