Speak Out: Second Chance disappointingly about money
May 20, 2012 12:28PM
Share your views with us without sharing your name. Call The Courier-News Speak Out line at 630-978-8345.
Updated: July 1, 2012 12:06PM
Second look at Second Chance Program: Regarding the Kane County state’s attorney’s idea to give second chances to drug offenders, I thought maybe a Republican in the judiciary system finally got a conscience about sending young kids to prison and giving them felonies for life for small amounts of drugs. Then I talked to someone in the judiciary system. They’re broke. They can’t afford to send these kids to jail anymore. It’s just sad it wasn’t their conscience of ruining the lives of these kids. It’s down to money as usual.
Editor’s note: We don’t know where you got the idea the Second Chance program was purely altruistic in its approach. State’s Attorney Joe McMahon made it clear in his announcement of the initiative May 8 that its goals are two-fold: cut police and prosecution costs, and allow low-level offenders to avoid a permanent drug conviction on their records that would keep them from improving their lives. McMahon noted that last year there were 344 felony drug cases that might have met the Second Chance criteria; over the last five years, the number of potential Second Chance cases has remained close to 10-12 percent of the total felonies filed; and the average cost to house someone in the Kane County jail is $23,000 per inmate per year.
Missing police report: What happened to the police report where someone threw a brick through the front door of the place on Sadler Avenue? I never saw it in the paper. I had to ask what happened to that company.
Editor’s note: When did this happen? According to Elgin police reports downloaded to crimereports.com, the only crime reported from Sadler Avenue during the past 30 days was a car vandalism incident that happened in the 400 block of Sadler on April 30. But in general, the Elgin Police Department has changed the way it makes police reports available, making it more difficult to obtain information about routine incidents on a timely basis. After several days have elapsed, we actually tend to find out about more incidents than we used to. But with 10 or more crimes reported per day, and our space limited, we then sometimes have to limit our coverage to the more serious cases and those more likely to indicate a pattern of crime that also could affect other people. A report about a brick being thrown through a window might not be considered serious enough to make the cut if space is short and it is competing against reports about burglaries, maybe an armed robbery or two, fires, car burglaries, battery cases, thefts and scams.
