Illinois
JRI Year: 2009
2009
Background
Between 1999 and 2006, Illinois experienced a 47 percent increase in adult prison admissions, much of which stemmed from technical violations of community supervision.1 In 2007, Illinois’s preexisting Criminal Law Edit, Alignment, and Reform (CLEAR) Commission, with technical assistance from The Pew Charitable Trusts and the Vera Institute of Justice, began evaluating the state’s sentencing policies and practices.2
Policies
After conducting this analysis, the commission issued recommendations to preserve public safety, reduce crime, and make the most effective use of correctional resources. The recommendations included creating a community-based diversion program for people committing low-level offenses, adopting evidence-based practices within prisons and community supervision, introducing a validated assessment, using the assessment to direct more people to community supervision, and adding a system of graduated responses to community supervision.3 The commission also recommended the implementation of an automatic integrated system to link courts, corrections, and community supervision departments.4
The recommendations were incorporated into Public Act 096-0761, also called The Crime Reduction Act of 2009, which was signed into law by then-Governor Patrick Quinn on August 25, 2009.5 Implementation of the Act resulted in several policy and practice changes.
Outcomes
The Crime Reduction Act of 2009 was the foundation for a number of criminal justice initiatives.6 These policy changes led to the establishment of Adult Redeploy Illinois, a program that offers financial incentives to jurisdictions for diverting people convicted of nonviolent offenses from state prisons through community-based services.7
For more information, see Public Safety in Illinois | The Pew Charitable Trusts.
JRI-Driven Policies and Practices
- Authorize performance incentive funding
- Require/improve risk-needs assessment
- Require evidence-based practices
- Establish sentencing commission/revise sentencing guidelines
- Require fiscal impact statements
Other JRI-Funded Projects
In Illinois, the CSG Justice Center and the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority will create and implement a new vision for public data dissemination guided by the metrics as part of the Justice Counts initiative.
1 The Pew Charitable Trusts, 2013, Public Safety in Illinois, Washington, DC: The Pew Charitable Trusts,retrieved June 2, 2023 from https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/fact-sheets/2013/01/14/public-safety-in-illinois.
2 Ibid.
3 Illinois Department of Corrections, “Crime Reduction Act,” retrieved June 2, 2023 from https://idoc.illinois.gov/crimereductionact.html.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 Illinois Justice Project, Adult Justice: Adult Redeploy, Chicago, IL: IJP, retrieved May 15, 2023 from https://www.iljp.org/adult-justice.
7 Ibid.