Eye On Illinois: No practical restitution for damages Madigan inflicted

An email has been rattling in my brain since July.

The reader, by his own telling, spent about 20 months in prison half a century ago stemming from addiction issues. He framed the debate over cash bail as landing “at the fringes of the fundamental problem with our criminal justice system, which is that we use prison as the punishment for almost every serious offense, and prison not only does not do most of those things well, in many areas it harms society.

“Prison does one, and only one thing well: It separates people from society. For those who are a serious threat, it should be used, and used more vigorously than it is today. A violent person should be removed from society until it is clear that such a person is no longer violent, or no longer capable of being violent…

“In our present system, we keep people locked up when they require assistance, to the point that we are superimposing the costs of a nursing home onto the vast expense of a prison.

“Obviously punishments have to be found for those who have committed offenses, but prison works badly and at great cost. Public shaming worked quite well in times gone by (stocks anyone?); I believe that a range of halfway house styles from close to full-time confinement to very loose rules, depending on the offender, sometimes lasting for years or even decades, would save a lot of money, protect society from a significant group of offenders, and permit them to hold jobs, keep their families and pay for their confinement. …

“I came out angry, bitter, and looking for ways to harm society. Not until I entered recovery a few years later did I start to become the productive citizen that I hope I am today.”

It’s hard to find anyone outside his family shedding a tear for the 90-month prison sentence former House Speaker Michael Madigan earned Friday, especially given the 10 corruption counts on which a jury found him guilty in February are likely a fraction of his decades-long exploitation of public office for private gain.

And yet we’re kidding ourselves by thinking that a prison term – if it survives the inevitable appellate process – serves the public good. Madigan was central to the impeachment of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich after his notorious brush with the FBI, not a ringing endorsement for deterrence.

Madigan’s $2.5 million fine is a different story. I’d liquidate every last asset and return it to taxpayers. Still, the denouement of Madigan’s public life brings no joy. There’s no practical restitution for the damages inflicted on Illinois. Absent fully dismantled levers of power, this sentence isn’t the final chapter on Statehouse corruption.

• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Local News Network. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.