NCJ Number
141912
Journal
Compiler Volume: 12 Issue: 4 Dated: (Winter 1993) Pages: complete issue
Editor(s)
K P Morrison
Date Published
1993
Length
20 pages
Annotation
Prison crowding in Illinois has reached crisis proportions, and correctional officials project that prisons will run out of room for new inmates by July 1994 if significant changes are not made.
Abstract
To identify some of these changes, the Illinois governor has created a 29-member Task Force on Crime and Corrections to identify promising approaches for easing the current crisis and for implementing long-term changes. The adult prison population in Illinois has nearly tripled over the last 15 years, and Illinois prisons currently house nearly 32,000 inmates in a system originally designed to handle only about 20,000. Given the magnitude of such overcrowding, the Task Force on Crime and Corrections has two jobs. One is to develop a plan for the future that will reduce crowding by lowering recidivism and promoting inmate rehabilitation. The other is more immediate, to ease the pressure on State prisons. The task force has discussed increasing the number of offenders placed on electronic detention and the use of boot camps. An important task force focus has also been on the development of sanctions that fall somewhere between fines and probation on the one hand and institutionalization on the other. In addition, the task force is looking at ways to expand the correctional industries program in Illinois prisons, in cooperation with the private sector. Attention is additionally being directed toward drug abuse and violent crime prevention.