Chicago Mayor Richard Daley addresses the media Tuesday
Chicago’s mayor and top cop are calling for a change to the way some prisoners are released early in Illinois.
That comes after a 19-year-old parolee was arrested for killing a Chicago police technician and a housing authority officer.
Mayor Richard Daley says anyone serving jail time for committing a gun crime should not qualify for early release programs. “The use of a gun is very serious in a crime and society has to take that much more serious,” he said.
Chicago Police Superintendent Jody Weis agrees. “I think if you use a weapon, it should be a mandatory sentence,” Weis said. “It’s insane that people are getting out early after they’ve tried to kill someone.”
Daley and Weis were reacting to the recent arrest of Timothy Herring Jr. He was out on parole after serving half of a six-year prison sentence for armed robbery. Herring was denied bond by a Cook County judge Tuesday
Meantime, the head of the John Howard Association, a prison reform group, said excluding gun offenders from early release programs will further overcrowd Illinois’ prisons.
Originally reported by Chicago Public Radio. Read the original article here.
I don’t quite understand the focus on guns … why should there be any early release for ANY violent criminal, regardless the tool that may or may not have been held in the hand?
It is a bigger problem is that violent people are being let out of jail, than it is that they might encounter a potentially dangerous object while out of jail.