McCarthy Calls For Tougher Gun Crime Sentencing; IDOC Says Sentencing Would Add Costs To System

By Chuck Sudo in News on Oct 14, 2013 9:00PM

Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy is using a new study to back his calls for tougher sentencing for gun crimes.

The results of a recent University of Chicago Crime Lab study showed felons convicted of aggravated unlawful use of a weapon were four times more likely to be arrested again on murder charges and nine times more likely to be re-arrested for non-lethal shootings than other felons. The study focused on all felons sentenced to probation between 2008 and 2011, and a subset of felons convicted of aggravated UUW charges and tracked re-arrests within two years of their probation dates.

The study’s results proved to McCarthy “we have to treat illegal gun possession as the violent crime that it is.” A bill in Springfield championed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez would raise the mandatory sentence for unlawful UUW convictions from one to three years and require those convicted of aggravated UUW to serve 85 percent of their sentence in what’s called a “truth in sentencing” provision.

Todd Vandermyde, the National Rifle Association’s chief lobbyist in Illinois, is opposed to the bill because he fears first time offenders would be treated the same as felons. The Illinois Department of Corrections also sounded cause for alarm. A spokesman for the department said the bill would add $1 billion in additional costs to Illinois’ already overburdened prison system over the next decade. That number was based on the $21,000 average cost of housing an inmate for a year as well as the costs of building new prison facilities and repurposing others. The bill would add an estimated 3,860 additional inmates to Illinois’ prison system.