August 27, 2011 - Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center

With 49,000 inmates in August, the Illinois prison system has reached 147 percent of its rated capacity. The prison population has grown by 4,000 since Democratic Governor Pat Quinn cancelled an early release program last year.

In response, the state has announced it is changing the way it calculates capacity. Instead of calculating capacity by the number of cells, officials will measure the number of prisoners the system can hold by how many beds it can fit into its facilities. This raises the maximum capacity from 33,373 to 51,000, and effectively allows prison administrators to crowd as many bunks into cells as needed. Continue reading...