Quinn Suspends Secret Program

As soon as daylight appears, Governor Cockroach scurries for cover. AP breaks the story (via the Sun Times):

• Repeat drunk drivers, drug users and even people convicted of battery and weapons violations are serving less than three weeks' total time behind bars under a secret change in policy by Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn's prison system, The Associated Press has learned.
  
  Records obtained and analyzed by the AP show that since September more than 850 inmates have been released weeks earlier than they ordinarily would be. The Corrections Department is saving money by abandoning a policy that requires inmates to serve at least 61 days and awarding them discretionary good-conduct credit immediately upon entering prison.
  

Battery offenders? Weapons violators? Why even have prisons at all governor? Quinn suspended the program as soon as it came to light:

• Quinn said today that his office will review the Illinois Department of Corrections' "meritorious good time" release program, which came under fire after an analysis showed some inmates with past convictions for drunken driving, battery and weapons violations spent mere weeks behind bars before release.

  Under the program, corrections chief Michael P. Randle may grant any inmate 90 days' worth of credit based on their behavior while behind bars.

  The report by the Associated Press found hundreds of inmates were given the good-conduct credit immediately on entering prison, and more than 850 inmates have been released under the program since September.

Of course, since this was a budgetary move, don't count on Parole Agents being sent out to collect these mistakes any time soon.

A definitely don't count on a list of names so we can see what sort of mayhem Quinn and Randle have unleashed on the community. Just like Quinn won't release the names of the 1,000 he still plans on releasing so we can track that plague, too.