RichardWanke.Com

There is more public embarrassment in store for Governor Quinn and IDOC over the Corrections MGT Push Program early release of inmates which Quinn suspended in December 2009. In January 2010, IDOC parole agents were ordered to begin “intensive compliance” checks on these parolees with the intent of returning as many of them as possible back to IDOC for any type of infraction, however minor. IDOC  is still continuing the intensive compliance checks, and will probably meet it’s unstated goal of violating the parole of everyone who was released under the program because it’s criteria includes violations for infractions even as minor as not being home on the day of the compliance check, or having beer in the house or missing a daily telephone call-in.

Since all of the inmates released via the MGT Push Program are probably aware of the compliance checks being used as IDOC’s method to ensure that they are re-incarcerated, it should not be surprising to us to learn that some inmates have gone awol from IDOC as a result. Now this is going to make Quinn and Randle squirm a bit more, but the Associated Press  released an information today showing that based on records it obtained in response to a Freedom of Information Request to IDOC, that 50 of the 1745 parolees who were originally released under MGT Push, are on the lam from IDOC: their whereabouts are unknown to the agency.

Quinn critics are going to make a big deal out of this, but, in our opinion: I mean, heck, what can you expect? With all the political fuss over the program and how it was implemented and who was released and the hue and cry, it is natural to expect that once out, some of these guys figured they would have to vanish from IDOC in order to remain out. And, considering that some of these guys only got out 6 months, or 3 months earlier (or less) than they would have gotten out anyways, you can be sure that none of them wanted a parole violation for no real reason on their record knowing that they would be stuck back behind IDOC bars waiting indefinitely with the rest of everybody now stuck there, waiting for some political resolution to come of all this “early release” mess.

So, we are not freaked to hear that 50 or so parolees (at any given time) are on the lam from IDOC and can’t be readily located.  They will turn up. Per the AP, they are sometimes located within days of vanishing, and we are sure that their percentage numbers are probably only a little higher than your average absentee parolee. But, of course, Quinn doesn’t need this kind of publicity now and it really doesn’t help promote the legislative inclination for politicians to resolve this political mess and move to reinstate any “Early Release” program.

You can read the AP news via this article printed today in the Pantagraph newspaper, here. The Pantagraph also printed a list of information about who has gone AWOL and their past offenses here. Note that the parolee examples it mentions who are on the lam now, Mike Watkins, and Curtis Nielson, are both parolees who would be out on parole anyways now, since they were only released 6 and 3 months early, respectively.