Illinois Prisons Plan New Early Release Effort

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn's administration is reintroducing an early inmate release plan to ease prison crowding.

Lee Enterprises Newspapers Springfield Bureau reports that the Illinois Department of Corrections has started reviewing records of potentially eligible inmates.

A legislative committee approved rules for the program this week. Quinn signed them into law in June.

A Corrections spokeswoman had no timetable for implementing the system for granting up to six months' time off an inmate's sentence.

Quinn suspended a former version of the program in 2009 after The Associated Press reported that 1,700 inmates had been released within weeks or even days of arriving at the penitentiary.

There are more than 49,000 inmates in space designed for 33,000.