Although his State of the State address was widely derided as long-winded and unspecific, Gov. Pat Quinn did take one principled and responsible choice during the speech: While explaining the steps his administration took to stem the controversy over the early prison release program known as "MGT Push," Quinn said that addressing over-incarceration and recidivism in the state's criminal justice system is "something we need to embark on this year." That's not a statement you hear from public officials very often, especially those with as much influence as the governor. But Quinn is absolutely correct that criminal justice reform is important for the economic and moral health of the state.

The press, as it was, largely overlooked this statement. That's not surprising, considering their spotty coverage of the MGT Push fallout so far. While the criticism of Quinn's handling of the controversy is largely justified, the press has failed to provide proper context and thereby fed gubernatorial challenger Dan Hynes' attacks.  Chicago Justice Project executive director Tracy Siska took them all to task in a sharp post yesterday:

The press is all a flutter over the fact that some of the individuals released under the MGT program committed new offenses after their release from the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC).  The reporting on the issue leads the reader to believe that if only these individuals had not been let out after serving 7 days rather than the 61 days that was mandatory they would never have reoffended.  The media has presented no evidence to demonstrate this.  It’s true that if the re-offender had not been released until after serving the mandatory 61 days in state prison they would not have been able to victimize the specific individuals that they did.  However, even if the re-offender had served the full 61 days behind bars, it is more than likely that a victimization would have still taken place resulting in a different victim, not an elimination of the new crime from ever taking place. [...]

One specific ad from Democrat Dan Hynes details that 1700 “violent criminals” were released under the MGT program.  Really, all of the 1700 were violent criminals?  Just how did Hynes confirm this?  Also, how do they define violent criminal?  If someone had committed a violent crime years ago gets picked up for a pot possession charge and gets sent back to prison for a period of time are we to consider that individual a violent criminal?

Without the answers to these question the Hynes ad is nothing more than political grandstanding and truly reprehensible.

As we've written before, when the state's three-year recidivism rate is over 50 percent, there is an inherent risk in releasing any offender from prison, regardless of whether they were behind bars for seven days or seven years. The way to keep that rate down is comprehensive reform, not fearmongering or lengthened terms.

Read Siska's full post here.