Public Act 99- 861 - Presentence Investigation

Public Act 99-861 (PA99-861) effective January 1, 2017, was an outgrowth of the Commission on Criminal Justice & Sentencing Reform (the Commission) created in 2015 by Governor Bruce Rauner. The Commission met for two years and in December 2016 published its final report recommending changes that would attempt to reduce the prison population by 25% in ten years. Public Act 99-861 implemented recommendation 12, which sought to strengthen the statutory preference for probation by requiring the sentencing judge to state on the record the reasons for a prison sentence, including why probation or conditional discharge was not appropriate, when imposing a sentence for a Class 3 or Class 4 felony on an offender with no history of violent crime or a prior sentence to probation.

The enacted legislation differs from the recommendation in two important aspects:

1. The recommendation targeted people who did not have a previous sentence to probation or a violent crime conviction while the legislation requires people to meet both criteria. Consequently, the pool of individuals impacted by the statute is smaller.

2. The recommendation required a judge imposing a prison term to state on the record the reasons that a sentence to probation or conditional discharge was not appropriate. In addition to the statement on the record, the statute requires a presentence investigation report to be considered before imposing a prison sentence.

The available data show:

• The aggregate number of PSIs has decreased across the State since the law took effect.-
• In fiscal year 2015 (FY15) approximately 30% of Class 3 and4 prison inmates had not had a probation sentence before being sent to prison and 58% of new court admissions to prison for Class 3 and Class 4 felonies had no prior convictions for violent crimes as defined in the Rights of Crime Victims and Witnesses Act, 725 ILCS 120/1, et seq.
• The probability ofgetting aprobation or prison sentence for those eligible for sentencingunder PA 99-861 has not changed since the effective date.
• The number ofpeople eligible under this lawto be sentenced to prisonhas decreased; however, this trendgenerally followedthe overall downward trend of prison admissions.
• Racial demographics have notchanged significantly for either eligible probation or prison populations since January 1, 2017.