Governor Pat Quinn announced on Friday that 1,000 lucky inmates of the Illinois Department of Corrections are going to get early releases. Quinn says he's doing this to save money, about $5 million a year.
According to this story in the Tribune, Quinn waited until late in the day on Friday afternoon to make the announcement. You have to know something's up when a politician tries to slip one past just as the weekend starts. Of course, the IDOC tells us there's nothing to fear:
An Illinois Department of Corrections prisons spokeswoman said that
only "low-level, non-violent" offenders who are in the last year of
their sentence will qualify for early release and will be fitted with
electronic monitoring devices.
Meanwhile, the two Cook County state's attorney investigators who
were escorting Maday have been suspended for not following policy...
Officials said that although his wrists and ankles were cuffed,
Maday managed to lunge forward between the car's bucket seats and seize
the driver's revolver from his waist. Maday then turned the gun on the
second investigator, who was also in the front seat in violation of
policy, and forced him to disarm, officials said.
While I'm sure that Thursday was the low point in the careers of the two suspended investigators, they were lucky. They are alive, and no
one else got hurt. Like I said before,
it's amazing that Maday's escape and 2-day crime spree ended as well as
it did. Think about it: he disarmed 2 officers and didn't shoot them,
committed 2 carjackings and didn't injure either victim, robbed a bank
and finally got in a chase while armed and didn't fire a shot.
Finally,
I'd like to remind all my Chicago-area readers that it could be worse.
At least we live in a place where the police are still, occasionally,
allowed to chase bad guys. This is not the case for the residents of
Wellford, South Carolina. Thanks to the folks at Second City Cop, I found this story:
And by "no chase" she means "no chase":
no vehicle pursuits, no foot pursuits, nothing. No chases, period.
Like our Governor Quinn, she is thinking of the bottom line:
Peake says she issued the mandate because
several officers have been injured during chases, driving up insurance
costs for the town.
"The officers are costing us more money on insurance than most
citizens here in the city of Wellford are even earning," says Peake.
She says the city is paying out $20,000 annually in workers' compensation claims, much of it due to the police force.
There's an entertaining video in which she faces off with a reporter who questions the wisdom of this directive:
I
ask you, which is the better money-saving strategy: releasing "low-level"
felons from prison, or directing your cops to stop trying to lock up
bad guys in the first place?
*shaking my head* This is yet one of the many reasons why the no-snitching rule continues, the extreme differences those who understand WHY people commit crimes again and those who couldn't give a damn. Your whole blog doesn't take into account the problem with finding a job after the first crime nor does it point out the cops who ARE the bad guys. *sigh*
Montie, thanks for weighing in on this. My blog is written from the perspective of a working cop, and isn't meant to offer a detailed examination of causes of crime. I'll leave that to sociologists and criminologists who are far better educated than I am. I do have a good working knowledge of criminals, though, and there is no one reason (or set of reasons) that cause people to commit crime. To say that lack of economic opportunity "causes" crime is a gross over-simplification. If lack of economic opportunity "caused" crime, absent any other factor, every poor person would be a criminal.
As far as pointing out cops who are bad guys, I've addressed that occasionally. In general, though, I see plenty of coverage of police scandals in other media outlets, so I don't see a need to focus on it here.
And how is somebody who has been in prison with murderers and rapists "lucky"? Oh my gawd, I'm just shaking my head over here. I don't understand how police officers turn such a blind eye to all of the baggage before and after someone goes to prison. I'm not justifying crime, but it's not even remotely this black and white.
By "lucky" I meant "lucky to be getting out early". You'd have to agree that it would seem like a pretty big gift to have a year or so shaved off your sentence.
I'll tell you why it's easy for me to "turn such a blind eye" to what goes on in someone's life before and after prison--it's not my job. I'm too busy focusing on dealing with the predatory behavior at hand, and on protecting and helping the victims of that predatory behavior. Let academics and social workers handle the rest. In my job I have to deal with very real, immediate problems, and it doesn't do anyone any good for me to spend time fretting over what circumstances led junior to his life of crime.
5 Comments
Skylers Dad said:
Too many prisoners and not enough money? Would a pay per view cage match with them help solve the problem?
Message from Montie said:
*shaking my head* This is yet one of the many reasons why the no-snitching rule continues, the extreme differences those who understand WHY people commit crimes again and those who couldn't give a damn. Your whole blog doesn't take into account the problem with finding a job after the first crime nor does it point out the cops who ARE the bad guys. *sigh*
Joe the Cop said:
Montie, thanks for weighing in on this. My blog is written from the perspective of a working cop, and isn't meant to offer a detailed examination of causes of crime. I'll leave that to sociologists and criminologists who are far better educated than I am. I do have a good working knowledge of criminals, though, and there is no one reason (or set of reasons) that cause people to commit crime. To say that lack of economic opportunity "causes" crime is a gross over-simplification. If lack of economic opportunity "caused" crime, absent any other factor, every poor person would be a criminal.
As far as pointing out cops who are bad guys, I've addressed that occasionally. In general, though, I see plenty of coverage of police scandals in other media outlets, so I don't see a need to focus on it here.
Message from Montie said:
And how is somebody who has been in prison with murderers and rapists "lucky"? Oh my gawd, I'm just shaking my head over here. I don't understand how police officers turn such a blind eye to all of the baggage before and after someone goes to prison. I'm not justifying crime, but it's not even remotely this black and white.
Joe the Cop said:
By "lucky" I meant "lucky to be getting out early". You'd have to agree that it would seem like a pretty big gift to have a year or so shaved off your sentence.
I'll tell you why it's easy for me to "turn such a blind eye" to what goes on in someone's life before and after prison--it's not my job. I'm too busy focusing on dealing with the predatory behavior at hand, and on protecting and helping the victims of that predatory behavior. Let academics and social workers handle the rest. In my job I have to deal with very real, immediate problems, and it doesn't do anyone any good for me to spend time fretting over what circumstances led junior to his life of crime.
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