Crime & Delinquency

The Illinois Department of Corrections includes 18 operating prisons, 16 community correctional centers, and 7 work camps with more than 19,200 adults in custody; 7 juvenile facilities housing 1,200 committed youths; adult and juvenile parole systems with more than 11,000 people under supervision; and support divisions. With an annual budget of more than $400,000, Director Lane manages an agency that employs 10,100 staff to meet the custody needs of more than 31,000 offenders.

Between 1980 and 1983, the Illinois Department of Corrections made an early release of over 21,000 inmates in response to a prison crowding crisis. During this period, over 5,900 prison years were averted and the projected prison population was reduced by approximately 10%. NCCD's study evaluated the various effects of this far-reaching program on prisoners, prison crowding, local criminal justice systems, and the public. In terms of public safety, early release did not increase the probability that an inmate would commit additional crimes once released. Also, early release substantially accelerated the amount of crime suffered by the public, but contributed to less than 1% of all crimes reported in Illinois. The state crime rate actually declined while early release was operating. Considerable prison costs were averted by the program, although a substantial portion of these savings were eliminated after the volume and amount of economic losses experienced by the victims of early release crimes were accounted for. However, overall early release proved to be cost-effective. The study provided no firm answers to the question of whether early release is good or bad correctional policy. For Illinois state officials, it successfully served to temporarily restrain population growth until more permanent solutions to prison crowding could be enacted. However, early release increased the amount of crime suffered by the public and further discredited an already troubled criminal justice system. If nothing more, this research provides policymakers with a greater understanding of the potential consequences associated with early release as well as the limits of incapacitation (both positive and negative) as an effective strategy for controlling crime in our society.

There are two general questions to be asked about research evaluation reports of the kind presented in “Using Early Release to Relieve Prison Crowding.” The first is, “What are the specific findings and how adequate was the methodology by which they were obtained?” The second, larger query centers on the broader significance of the results. The latter question is concerned with the policy implications that ought to be drawn from the research. Although I want to touch upon both of these matters in this relatively brief commentary, it is to the second question that most of my remarks speak.

Few problems can pose a greater threat to free, democratic societies than that of wrongful conviction—the conviction of an innocent person. Yet relatively little attention has been paid to this problem, perhaps because of our understandable concern with the efficiency and effectiveness of the criminal justice system in combatting crime. Drawing on our own database of nearly 500 cases of wrongful conviction, our survey of criminal justice officials, and our review of extant literature on the subject, we address three major questions: (1) How frequent is wrongful conviction? (2) What are its major causes? and (3) What policy implications may be derived from this study?