BRING PAROLE BACK TO ILLINOIS
By: Stanley Howard
October 10, 2020
Illinois is one of a few states in the entire country without a parole system that evaluate prisoners to decide if and when a prisoner should be released. The current system is inadequate and needs to be dismantled and replaced with one that is just and humane.
I have been incarcerated for 36 years in the state of Illinois 16 of which were spent suffering and facing execution on Death Row for a crime I did not commit.
I lived through and survived the “Get-Tough-On-Crime” era. That’s when most politicians from both major political parties were climbing on top of each other trying to convince voters they were more tougher on crime.
While they were using the rise in crime during the 1980s and 1990s for their own political gains, cloaked under a factitious so called “War on Drugs” and ‘ ‘War on Crime” to mass incarcerate mostly Black and Brown Americans, I was on the front— line on the opposing side trying to educate the public that the criminal justice system and its system of capital punishment was racist, broken and unjust.
A massive wave of draconian laws, policies and rules were implemented by all Three Branches of Government during this era, and done so regardless of the short and long term effects they would have on an already crippled system. They were able to satisfy their goals to make it easier to convict and imprison, able to issue longer prison sentences, and make it virtually impossible to receive justice and relief.
I was also on the frontline helping to expose to the world how I, and over 180 other Black men, were tortured into allegedly “confessing” by Chicago police commander Jon Burge and his “Midnight Crew” of racist, crooked, white cops. The torture consisted of severe beatings, Russian roulette, suffocations with plastic, electric shocks with a cattle—prod and a hand powered generator, and much more.
The evidence shows that the Chicago Police Department, Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office and the Courts turned a blind eye to the torture scandal, worked to cover it up and took no action to stop it — sending the torture victims to prison and Death ROW. Burge was eventually fired in 1993 and subsequently sentenced to four and a half years in federal prison in 2010 for lying about the torture scandal.
(You can read more about the torture scandal in my book “TORTURED BY BLUE: The
Chicago Police Torture Story” written by Stanley Howard in Collaboration with
Torture Victims Marvin Reeves, Mark Clements and Ronald Kitchen)
I’m now joining the long list of prison reform advocates and groups, community leaders and activists, whose standing on the frontline demanding change and reforms to Illinois parole system.
C—Number Prisoners
Before February 1, 1978, Illinois’ Prisoner Review Board was called the Parole and Pardon Board. One of its main functions was to provide hearings for all the prisoners eligible for parole.
Illinois was operating under a indeterminate sentencing scheme that was established by statute in 1961 when convicted felons were typically sentenced to a very broad, indefinite, range of years. (Example: 3 to 12; 17 to 65; 100 to 400 years)
The practice at the time wasn’t to release prisoners after they served a flat number of years, like the current determinate sentencing scheme that went into effect on February 1, 1978. But rather, to release prisoners when the Parole and Pardon Board deemed it was okay and the prisoner didn’t pose a threat to society.
Prisoners sentenced to 20 years or more usually became eligible for parole after serving 11 years and 3 months. And the Prisoner Review Board maintained juris— diction over when to parole this group of prisoners. These prisoners are known as “C—number Prisoners” because the letter ‘ was apart of their prison identification number.
The PRB heard approximately 16,500 parole cases during its first year in 1978. That number has been slowly reduced over the years due to prisoners with less than 20 years opting for a definite release date; prisoners being paroled after completing their maximum sentences; prisoners being given clemency or simply dying in prison.
C—number Prisoners continued being paroled at a normal rate between 1978 and 1984. That’s when there was a huge drop in the number of them being released.
Year No. of parole reviews No. granted
| 1978 6,684 | 3,823 |
| 1979 2,908 | 1,257 |
| 1980 1,653 | 353 |
| 1981 1,404 | 304 |
| 1982 1,189 | 300 |
| 1983 1,053 | 295 |
| 1984 791 | 21 |
| 1985 821 | 38 |
| 1986 866 | 25 |
| 1987 929 | 21 |
| 1988 813 | 14 |
| 1989 721 | 23 |
| 1990 681 | 31 |
| 1991 704 | 35 |
| 1992 644 | 14 |
| 1993 615 | 24 |
| 1994 571 | 7 |
It’s said that this precipitous drop was due to the unjust, direct and indirect, influence from then—Cook County state’s attorney Richard M. Daley and Governor James Thompson.
As the county’s top prosecutor, Daley’s administration lied and defended the officers involved in the torture scandal and presided over the prosecution of many wrongful convictions during his tenure. This includes sending a host of innocent men to Death Row. Daley eventually used his fraudulent tough—on—crime record to become mayor of Chicago.
Operating under this disingenuous and dishonorable position and selective outrage, Daley sent a letter to the Chicago Sun—Times newspaper in 1984 Complaining that the PRB was “abusing its discretion” by paroling C—number Prisoners “after they served just a fraction of their original sentences. He indicated that he was going to introduce legislation “to stop the abuse of the parole system” to make it more difficult for Illinois prisoners to be paroled.
Prior to becoming governor in 1977, Thompson was a popular, hardnose prosecutor who sent over 225 public officials to federal prison for corruption as the U.S. Attorney based in Chicago.
Thompson’s assistant for criminal justice issues, James K. Williams, stated during a deposition that he went to the PRB and “did a survey on what was going on with a number of cases in which the Governor thought that decisions were being made he didn’t agree with looked over cases to see how they were handled, who was handling them and reported to [ NE Governor] on the results of what he found…
It’s believed that Williams’ findings led to a member of the P RB being dismissed and the Governor sending the P RB a scathing letter demanding that the entire 10—member board vote to parole prisoners, instead of the normal 3—member panel.
(Note: Williams later became Chairman of the PRB)
The dismissal sent an unspoken threat to all the other board members.
There’s absolutely no doubt judging from the above chart that Daley and Thompson s inexplicable and unprecedented actions had a major effect on the PRB. It resulted in a drastic decline in the number of C—number Prisoners being released. Moreover, judging from all the available data, Daley and Thompson’s actions were not based on any penological reasons or evidence of a high recidivism rate.
It was purely political to project a fake image of being tough—on—crime at the sadistic cost of being inhumane to prisoners.
Besides their decisions being based on a whim and in a very inconsistent manner , it’s widely believed that the entire process is unfair because the P RB is packed with pro—prosecution/ pro—police sympathizers whose votes are punitive and very vindictive.
That’s why there’s been a huge push over the years to change the composition of the Board to consist of everyday people — teachers, clergy, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers and etc. (opposed to ex—law enforcement officials) to make it impartial and independent.
This push also consist of getting the PPB to start honoring its duty to the Illinois Constitution which states that all criminal penalties “shall be determined according to the seriousness of the offense and with the objective of restoring the offender to useful citizenship. (111. Const. 1970, Art. 1 S 11)
Some Board members has been extremely derelict in this constitutional responsibility by simply refusing to parole certain prisoners, even when the record clearly shows that the prisoner is “rehabilitated, has educated himself or herself, has an excellent prison record, strong family and community support, and poses no threat to society.
Parole is supposed to be granted to C—number Prisoners who receive a majority of the votes from the “Prisoner Review Board.” 730 ILCS 5/3-3-2(a)(2). But the Board has been unjustly denying parole to C—number Prisoners by wrongfully counting absent Board members (who did not attend the hearing and did not participate in any of the fact findings) as automatic “no” votes.
This means that even if the prisoner have a hearing and receive I—yes votes and 6—no votes from the 15 member Board, he or she would still be denied parole because the two absent votes are automatically counted as “no” votes. The e’ s nothing in the Illinois Constitution or in any Statute that authorizes the Board to count absent members as “no” votes.
The number of C—number Prisoners has been slowly whittling down at an inexcusable pace since 1984, and it’s long overdue for the PRB to stop this madness and mercifully release all of these long—term prisoners. Each of these prisoners has spent over 43 years in prison.
The MSR System
Citing a need to be fair, equitable and predictable to prisoners who were allegedly unsatisfied with the current system, there was a push in the 1970s to go from indeterminate to determinate sentences and to abolish parole.
This push was used by some to call for longer prison sentences and to take away sentencing discretion from trial judges.
This led to a compromise between Governor Thompson and the General Assembly to pass legislation in 1977. The measure increased the number of felonies with mandatory (non-probational and non-parolable ) prison sentences, extended term and consecutive sentences, and longer sentences for most felonies. Tt also created a new felony classification system with Class X for the most serious crimes, and it reinstated the death penalty.
The new law eliminated the indeterminate/broad range sentencing scheme and replaced it with determinate/flat sentences. This took away the uncertainty of when a prisoner would be released (like C—number Prisoners) and replaced it with exact outdates which would be determined by the sentence issued by the trial judge.
The Parole and Pardon Board and parole system was abolished and replaced with the Prisoner Review Board and Mandatory Supervised Release.
Depending on the Class of the offense each prisoner would serve one, two or three years of MSR under the new system. Strict conditions and guidelines are instituted by the PRB like under the old system, and violations can lead to the parolee being returned to prison to serve out the remaining of his or her sentence.
The new changes immediately increased the amount of people being sent to prison and the lengths of stays. This caused the prison population to balloon from approximately 10,000 in 1977 to well over 32,000 in 1993 twice capacity.
In 1998, even though violent and property crimes were rapidly declining from their perks in the early 1990s, state lawmakers continued to impose stricter legislation to keep sending people to prison and to keep them imprisoned longer. This includes passing the totally unnecessary “Truth in Sentencing” law.
It practically doubled the length of time some prisoners would serve and stopped their ability to earn “Good Time” off their sentences. This needless law made an already overcrowded situation even worse by pushing the prison population to just below 49,000 by 2015 — even though violent and property crime rates were at record lows.
It is my opinion that those laws were dumbfoundedly passed by the General Assembly and Executive Branch without thinking about the negative consequences they would have on the system and the lives of prisoner who seemed to become more expendable in the eyes of some politicians.
Governor Thompson (1977—1983) put together a “Task Force on Prison Overcrowding” that called for comprehensive correction reform by diverting low—level offenders to non-prison options and building new prisons.
Governor Jim Edgar’s (1993) “Task Force” on prison overcrowding called for continuum of community-based sanctions and a moratorium on sentence enhancement hoping to reduce the prison population by 7,500 prisoners in four years. (15, 000 prisoners were added during Edgar’s administration.)
Governor George Ryan (2000) put together a Blue-Ribbon Commission that called for dozens of reforms to be implemented to improve the criminal justice system and its death penalty. Unfortunately, none of the recommended reforms were passed, except the Bill that made it mandatory to “Videotape All Murder Confessions, which was sponsored by State Senator Barack Obama and signed into law by Governor Rod Blagojevich.
Governor Blagojevich (2003) put together a commission to examine and improve the MSR and reentry system and to reduce recidivism.
Governor Pat Quinn (2009) tried to deal with the overcrowding situation by granting sentence credits to short—term prisoners — the average sentence was reduced by 36 days. Quinn stopped the policy after taking much criticism from the press and his political opponents during an election year, and the prison population increased from about 45,000 to around 48,000.
Governor Bruce Rauner established The Illinois State Commission on Criminal Justice and Sentencing Reform to safely reduce the prison population “by 25 percent in 10 years.
All of these governors took gallant steps by simply acknowledging that the system was broken and needed reforms, but neither were able to overhaul the system in any significant way before leaving office.
Presently, after the George Floyd/Social Justice awakening, the vast majority of Americans are calling for change to the failed policies of the past and the unjust status quo of the criminal justice system.
Republicans and Democrats are finally realizing they cannot continue trying to incarcerate their way out of persistent social ills, because its only led o cruelly warehousing human beings in unsustainable numbers. Evidence of this bipartisan realization of needing to be “smart—on—crime (opposed to being tough— on—crime) is highlighted by the First Step Act. It was passed by a Republican—led U.S. Senate and Democratic—led U.S. House, and signed into law by President Donald Trump.
If Trump and Republicans can stand with Democrats to sign criminal justice reform legislation, truly, Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker shouldn’t have any problems doing the same with a Democratic Super—majority än both chambers of the General Assembly.
Governor Pritzker should waste no time in establishing a new Parole Board that’ s empowered wit the ability to:
- compassionately release elderly, terminally ill and prisoners diagnosed w/ serious medical needs;
- change all
- natural life sentences without parole to life sentences with parole — to be in accordance with the Illinois Constitution’s directive
of restoring the offender to useful citizenship.
* grant annual parole hearings to all prisoners who’ve served 25 years or more
* grant early release to any prisoner deemed to be “rehabilitated” and no longer poses a threat to society; and,
- release any prisoner to Home Confinement/Electronic Monitoring to serve out the remaining or his or her sentence if the Board deemed it safe. Allowing certain prisoners to serve some of the sentence on electronic monitoring would help to solve the ongoing issue with overcrowding and save a lot of money.
The determinate sentencing and MSR system that abolished parole that’s currently in place is about punishment (completing a prison sentence) and not about restoring the prisoner to useful citizenship (rehabilitation).
The new parole system s ou1d be able to evaluate prisoners through an assessment program.
The new parole system would also maintain control over the “Condition of Parole” (drug rehab, alcohol anonymous, anger management, life skills, electronic monitoring and etc.) in accordance with 730 ILCS 5/3—3—7 of the Illinois Compiled Statutes.
After his predecessors’ unsuccessful attempts at reforming the system, Governor Pritzker announced his seven—step plan to “reform and modernize” the state’s criminal justice system.
“We spend billions of dollars a year keeping too many people in an overcrowded prison system that has proven itself to be too expensive, too punitive and wholly ineffective at keeping Illinois families safe, Pritzker said in a statement on October 6, 2020. ‘TAs we move forward with the General Assembly to pass comprehensive criminal justice reform; it is my hope that the nation will look to Illinois as a leader in true equity and justice for generations to come.
The criminal justice system truly needs to be reformed from top to bottom, and it would be foolish and irresponsible if the parole system isn’t reformed first.
Once parole is brought ack to Illinois, lawmakers should immediately go to work on sentencing reform to show “the nation” what true criminal justice reforms looks like “for generations to come.
I would like to thank t e following for all the hard work they have done and are doing to Bring Parole Back to Illinois. Mr. Bill Ryan, Ms. Aviva Futoriah of The John Howard Association, Ms. Jean Snyder, Mr. Michael Deutsch of People’s law Office, Mr. Alan Mills/Uptown People’s Law Center, Ms. Jennifer Soble of the Illinois Prison Project, Ms. Cates/ Restore Justice Foundation, Parole Illinois, Statesville Speaks, and Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression.
Special thanks to Mr. David Saxner who was a true warrior in this fight and who absolutely loved being a voice for those of us on this side of the wall. May He
Rest in Peace.
“Justice will not be served until those who are not effected is as outraged as those who are. Benjamin Franklin
Stanley Howard, 57, has been incarcerated since he was 21 years old. He was pardoned while on Death Row by then—Governor George Ryan in 2003 but remains in prison on another bogus conviction. He spends most of his time helping other prisoners and speaking out against injustices and the system. He r s currently working on his second book “A Sworn True Story: How an Innocent Man was Sentenced to Death. It will be published by his own publishing company: “S—Man Publishing”
You can write to Stanley at: Stanley Howard N—71620, 2600 N. Brinton, Dixon, IL 61021
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