Prisoner Review Board Failures Fall Squarely on Governor Pritzker
Governor JB Pritzker, speaking at an event earlier this year, is facing renewed criticism for his appointments to boards and commissions like the Prisoner Review Board.
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OPINION
There’s little doubting JB Pritzker is the most liberal governor in the history of Illinois.
That’s saying something in John Peter Altgeld’s home state, who was “synonymous with the dawn of the Progressive era."
So it should come as little surprise that Pritzker has pursued a criminal justice system that reflects those values. You can call it “restorative justice,” you can call it “soft on crime.” Call it whatever you want.
It’s why there was so much backlash to the “Pretrial Fairness Act,” which ended cash bail in Illinois courts. Pritzker wasn’t always completely honest while defending the law during the 2022 campaign, claiming there weren’t charges a judge was prevented from holding a suspect on. Numerous analyses, and even Democratic State’s Attorneys who negotiated the bill, called fib.
After numerous conversations with the late Sen. Scott Bennett, who played a role in fixing the law, and both Republican and Democrat prosecutors who were in the room, I wasn’t overtly critical of the actual idea of ending cash bail, as long as judges had the leeway they needed to hold people who are a threat.
Is it working or failing so far? Jury’s still out.
But what may have a more lasting impact on the criminal justice system in the state has been Pritzker’s appointments to the Prisoner Review Board, which acts as the state’s parole board.
The issue was brought back to the public conversation last week after two members of the PRB resigned after the board released Crosetti Brand, who is accused of attempting to kill his ex-girlfriend and stabbing and killing her 11-year-old son, Jayden Perkins, who tried to protect her.
It has caused the outrage you would expect. The shouts could be heard from anywhere: they were Pritzker appointees (one was a Quinn appointee originally), Chicagoans (nope, one was from Champaign the other was from deep southern Illinois), and liberals (both were Republicans.)
The issues go far deeper than demographics.
PRB is an alarmingly secretive group. It has previously included reports on parole decisions and meeting minutes. Those no longer exist on the PRB website. The members make around $100,000 per year but rarely ever even face lawmakers to testify before the Senate Executive Appointments Committee prior to a vote.
There have also been numerous reports over the years that victim families haven’t been notified after the parolee is released.
There’s such a lack of transparency in state government today and we should all be alarmed by it. These aren’t secret negotiations on a bill or legislative back-slapping. These are life and death questions of whether a criminal, many of whom were violent, should be released back into the public.
This isn’t the first time Pritzker’s appointments have garnered scrutiny.
In 2022, two of his PRB nominees were rejected by the Senate, which was done with the help of 14 Senate Democrats. Another appointee resigned before his nomination even got a vote. A fourth, Max Cerda, was convicted of a double murder when he was 16. Cerda was paroled in 1998 at age 35, and began working with ex-offenders in Chicago to help them transition to life outside of prison. Cerda had voted to release a prisoner he had known while he was in prison.
A double murderer.
Pritzker withdrew the nomination then whined that Republicans were badmouthing nominees that clearly had no place on the state’s parole board.
There’s a crime problem in this state. Thankfully, it appears Cook County has just elected a State’s Attorney who may actually prosecute a criminal instead of immediately dumping them back onto the streets.
At the end of the day, the progressive tilt of state government is on JB Pritzker’s watch. And we all know he has an eye on the White House. They can play it down and get some help from softball questions from Chicago media, but it doesn’t take a particularly talented ad maker to give Pritzker his own Willie Horton moments when his time comes.
The other day, when Pritzker finally addressed the media after scurrying off to California for meetings with movie studios and fundraisers for the Democratic National Convention, he made a less than reasonable reaction to the failures of the PRB.
He took no responsibility.
The only changes he promised? Some additional domestic violence training.
And, as usual, he blamed superminority Republicans for, complaining, I guess?
“The more that people politicize the position, the less likely it is that someone would want to serve in it,” he said. “There have been people in the General Assembly, typically in the opposite party, who have politicized this. So it makes it more difficult.”
Give me a break.
He’s been Governor for more than five full years now. At any point in those five years, has JB Pritzker publicly raised his hand and said “I messed up?”
Of course not. It’s impeccably Trump-like.
You own this, Governor. Act like it.
I’m sick and tired of partisans playing politics every single time they open their mouths. It’s part of why I hate Washington politics so much.
Maybe the buck will stop with JB Pritzker someday.
It sure won’t be today.
