Springfield, IL – Senator Michael Noland (D-Elgin), Chair of the Senate Criminal Law Committee, led the fight today for legislation that will permanently put an end to the program that let more than 1,000 criminals return to the community after only days in prison. "I understand that Illinois needs to find a way to save money, but letting violent prisoners out early is too dangerous a step to take," Noland said. "I praise the governor for putting an end to this program, but we need to put in place regulations to make sure this never happens again."

 The Meritorious Good Time (MGT) program was originally intended to allow low-risk inmates to be released early based on good behavior. If the inmate earned enough good behavior credit they could be granted leave. Historically, prisoners were required to serve at least 60 days. However, over the last few months the Department of Corrections (DOC) accelerated this program to "MGT-Push" and credited inmates with good behavior after only serving a few days in prison. It has since been discovered that more than 20 of the released inmates had been convicted of a violent crime. More than 50 released inmates have already returned to jail, eight charged with new crimes.