Pubdate: Sun, 28 Apr 2002
Source: Daily Herald (IL)
Copyright: 2002 The Daily Herald Company
Contact:  http://www.dailyherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/107
Author: Richard A. Devine

NO EARLY RELEASE OF DRUG OFFENDERS

Gov. George Ryan has proposed freeing 4,500 prison inmates before their 
sentences have run to balance the state budget. That is 4,500 people who 
were arrested by the police for either possessing or dealing drugs, many of 
whom were prosecuted by my assistant state's attorneys.

Court records show it takes an average of nine arrests before a defendant 
is actually sentenced to prison. That is nine times that a police officer 
has arrested a suspect and nine times that assistant state's attorneys 
prosecuted the cases.

In each of these 4,500 cases, a judge has looked at the evidence, the 
amount of drugs involved and the criminal record of the defendant before 
deciding to send the defendant to prison.

To send these legally convicted and sentenced inmates back to their 
community - and I know a high percentage of these inmates are from Cook 
County - is not only reprehensible, but also illegal.

As the chief law enforcement officer of Cook County and the president of 
the Illinois State's Attorneys Association, I hope the governor's threat is 
an empty one. We have enough dealers and users on our streets without the 
governor circumventing the judiciary by unleashing a small army of drug 
offenders on our communities.

Richard A. Devine

Cook County State's Attorney

Chicago
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