Some media coverage is interpreting yesterday’s Erickson Report press conference on August 13, 2010, just as an event to criticize Governor Quinn for his handling of the IDOC Early Release Program and for retaining Michael Randle as IDOC Director. This shows how pathetic the mainstream media is at interpreting Election ploys. Organizations dealing with prisoner rights issues understand, (even if they did not appreciate it) Quinn’s objective in staging the press conference to squelch criticism from his political opposition prior to the November IL gubernatorial election.
Quinn, since the press conference has made it clear to the press several times that despite the problems with the Early Release program he has found Mike Randle to be a good IDOC administrator, and that he has no intention of replacing Randle as IDOC Director (for example, remarks to the AP, reported here).
The press and Quinn’s critics should know by now that Quinn would have already replaced Randle if he wanted to; Quinn is not shy about replacing Department staff and heads. He has already replaced a number of IDOC officials who he felt were not on-board with his policy changes, and he has replaced the heads of several other state agencies.
Quinn is confident that Randle has learned from the mistakes previously made and is the right man to move cautiously toward reinstatement of Early Release programs and the future awarding Good Time credits.
RichardWanke.Com 