Columns

Eye On Illinois: Parole reformers seek to make paths for the truly corrected

On one end is people who don’t bother with presumption of innocence. On the other are those who would abolish capital punishment and incarceration.

Everyone else is somewhere in the middle of the “how society deals with crime” spectrum, and the needle is always somewhat in motion.

Consider House Bill 2399 and Senate Bill 2333, the subjects of a Wednesday publicity event, which would restore the rights of people sentenced to life in prison to seek a parole hearing after 20 years of confinement. Though it’s a safe bet neither bill will move during the remainder of the fall veto session, it’s been clear all year there is serious General Assembly momentum to keep working on reforming the justice system.

State Rep. Carol Ammons, D-Urbana, is one of 16 sponsors of HB 2399. She stressed passing the bill wouldn’t guarantee anyone would be released, just that they could plead their case to a parole board. Under the present system, anyone sentenced to life without possibility of parole can only be freed through executive clemency. Either way the first filter is the Illinois Prisoner Review Board.

State Sen. Celina Villanueva, filed SB 2333, which now has 11 other cosponsors. Its synopsis includes a useful phrase for those seeking to advance the issue of expanding access to parole: earned discretionary reentry.

Those distinctions won’t appease everyone, but reformers surely will repeat the message that these bills are about ensuring the Department of Corrections has the chance to live up to its name for people who truly put in the effort.

“We want to change the way that we think of our criminal justice system as a system that just penalizes,” Villanueva said Wednesday, “but instead as a system that rehabilitates and actually encourages people focusing on reflecting on their actions, owning up to their actions, trying to change because of those actions, and recognizing that they’re not the same people that they were. And that they want to be contributing members that are coming back into society.”

It’s easy to type platitudes like “no human is irredeemable.” I can advocate for systemic changes addressing factors that breed violent crime, but that road is almost impossibly long. Some felons do not wish to – or cannot under the state’s current structures – be rehabilitated.

Yet there is power in the hope required to see a human not just for their worst actions but for their highest potential. To believe in remorse, penance, transformation.

But laws alone cannot soften the hearts of those hardened by crime. This includes victims and survivors, forever changed by trauma and deserving of their own compassion.

Such issues are deeply complex. Be wary of leaders who insist they are simply understood.

• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Media. Follow him on Twitter @sth749. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.

Scott Holland

Scott T. Holland

Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Media Illinois. Follow him on Twitter at @sth749. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.