City West Journal

There were three offenders convicted of crimes against justice released on parole near Illinois ZIP Code 60624 during 2024, according to the Illinois Department of Corrections.

The data shows that one man and two women were among the parolees. The youngest parolee was a 28-year-old male convicted of a crime against justice in 2022, and the oldest was a 34-year-old female convicted of a crime against justice in 2023.

The offender who had been incarcerated the longest was Maliek Green. He was convicted of a crime against justice in 2022, when he was 26 years old. He is now 28.

Commonly referred to as parole in Illinois, Mandatory Supervised Release (MSR) is a post-prison supervision period, in which individuals must follow specific rules like check-ins with parole officers; violations can lead to re-incarceration. Unlike parole, MSR is automatically required for all individuals released after serving a prison sentence.

In 2023, Gov. JB Pritzker signed a bill to reform Illinois’ Mandatory Supervised Release program. The law aims to reduce recidivism and reportedly create a more effective and equitable supervision system by incentivizing education, streamlining the review process, and expanding virtual check-ins.

“Our current supervision system too often operates unfairly, with rules that make it simply a revolving door back to jail,” Pritzker said at a bill signing ceremony in Chicago. “In fact, more than 25% of people who are released from prison in Illinois end up back behind bars, not because they’re recidivists, but instead for a noncriminal technical violation.”

A 2018 report from the Illinois Sentencing Policy Advisory Council indicated that 43% of released prisoners in Illinois return to prison within three years, costing taxpayers an estimated $152,000 per recidivism event.