"IDOC following Kentucky's lead to cost Taxpayers Tens of Millions of dollars by Untimely Release of Prisoners" by Lonnie Smith

Wasted taxpayers dollars can be seen in the IDOC defiance by Acting Director Latoya Hughes to give people in custody the Earned Programming Sentence Credits that they earn while redeeming themselves and serving their time.

HB3026 was a law created by progressive lawmakers and signed into law by Governor JB Pritzker in 2023 and came into effect on Jan. 1, 2024. The law was meant to ease the high medical cost of the graying in prison and the harm of mass incarceration. The population it targeted was the least likely to reoffend according to several studies. People who have spent decades working, going to school, and doing other programming. Yet, most of them are still in prison, because poor recordkeeping by the Illinois Department of Correction has made it difficult for many to get sentence credits they've earned. Even those that can produce the documents the IDOC has given them a "sue-me" attitude, rather than following the law which is written in plain text and intent.  Hughes has implemented policies and practices that have effectively deprived individuals of the retroactive Earned Program Semtemcing Credit provided for them in the law.


Illinois isn't the first state to cost its taxpayers millions of dollars by letting prison officials act above the law in their self-interest of keeping people in prison longer as a tool of job security. "Kentucky's Failure to Timely Release Prisoners Costs Taxpayers $30 Million (So Far)" reported by Douglas Ankney in Prison Legal News. Can Illinois taxpayers who pay IDOC salaries afford more wasted tax dollars, caused by those whose salaries taxpayers finance? 

Lonnie Smith holds a Master of Arts in Christian Ministry and Restorative Arts from North Park Seminary. He has been caged for 34 years in Illinois state prisons, currently locked up at Robinson.  Lonnie is a scholar activist who serves on the UU Prison Ministry of IL Advisory Council. In this post he highlights a ruling in KY that created some accountability for DOC around the high cost of long term sentences to taxpayers.