Better Government Association: State budget woes affect prisoner advocacy programs

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Illinois' devastated finances and well-known government dysfunction is claiming another victim: The legally-mandated launch of a promising prison reform program designed to significantly reduce the number of inmates returning to state prisons, according to a BGA Rescuing Illinois investigation.

The Illinois Crime Reduction Act of 2009 ordered the state's Department of Corrections to start a program dubbed "Risk, Assets and Needs Assessment" (RANA), which was to be implemented statewide by 2013.

So far, neither the full program nor a small proposed pilot program have started, despite a class-action lawsuit demanding it get underway and the ongoing pleas of prisoner advocates, including the John Howard Association. The Illinois Department of Corrections (DOC), which has said the plan was tabled for budgetary reasons, notes that litigation is underway and declines to say when or if the RANA pilot program will proceed.

This story runs in Thursday's edition of Illinois Times, a Springfield weekly that is similar to the Chicago Reader.

You can read the full Better Government Association story online at bettergov.org.