Today, Governor Bruce Rauner has righted an outrageous wrong by commuting the sentences of six youth who were unfairly prosecuted in Saline County due to behavior occurring at the Illinois Youth Center-Harrisburg.
Read MoreJHA calls for the following modifications to be made to the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) proposed rule changes for 20 Ill. Adm. Code 107.
Read MoreUncertainty breeds stress and discontent. This is especially true for prisoners who do not know when they will be exiting prison doors, which is the primary concern of most. Additionally, uncertainty about when prisoners will be leaving prison makes planning for reentry unnecessarily more difficult for prisoners, their families, and the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC).
Read MoreYesterday Governor Rauner issued an amendatory veto to House Bill 5104, which abolished the $5 co-pay Illinois prisoners must pay to see a doctor. The Governor cited balancing “the need to provide medical services with potential abuses of a free medical system that could create significant backlogs in an already overburdened Corrections healthcare system.”
Read MoreSneaking in controversial policy riders to pending legislation is a time-honored though unsavory political tactic. Governor Rauner’s attempt to bring back the death penalty by commandeering pending gun control legislation seems to be exactly that: an act of partisan gamesmanship, cynical opportunism and unprincipled politicking.
Read MoreAs Illinois’ sole citizen prison oversight organization, JHA believes that more oversight and scrutiny of our correctional system is critical in order to identify the unmet needs of incarcerated individuals, provide increased transparency in a profoundly troubled environment that is rife with human rights violations, and to hold our corrections system and administrators accountable for the treatment, programming, and care of the over 41,000 people in state custody today.
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