Pritzker Begins Prisoner Review Board Cleanup
Governor JB Pritzker at a Commonwealth Edison solar energy facility in Bolingbrook Monday. (Photo: Chicago Tribune)
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Governor JB Pritzker Monday began the process of picking up the pieces after two members of the state’s Prisoner Review Board resigned after a parolee killed an 11-year-old boy.
Pritzker announced the creation of a new Executive Director position of the PRB. He nominated James Montgomery, a Taylorville native who most recently worked as Director of Administrative Services with the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department in Massachusetts, which includes the City of Boston.
The appointment comes after the PRB came under fire last month when the board paroled Crosetti Brand. The day after his release, Brand is accused of attacking his pregnant ex-girlfriend and killing her son, Jayden Perkins, who was attempting to protect his mother.
The Governor’s office says the position will be responsible for overseeing administrative operations, including the addition of domestic violence prevention training and other “equity-based trainings” for the appointed board. Much of the previous workload was done by the PRB chair. Previous chair Donald Shelton resigned after the Brand incident. Former board member LeAnn Miller, who wrote the order releasing Brand, also resigned.
Republicans say Pritzker has yet to make appropriate changes to the PRB.
“Gov. Pritzker has still failed to provide a transparent accounting of the breakdown in the PRB process that led to the deadly release of Crosetti Brand,” Senate GOP Leader John Curran (R-Downers Grove) said in a statement. “We welcome any addition that will help make the Board more effective at improving public safety, but a new staff position is not going to make up for an activist Governor appointing unqualified board members who operate with little to no transparency.”
Meeting minutes and case actions were removed from the Board website in recent years and have yet to reappear.
Pritzker has not announced nominations for the two recently opened seats on the board.
