September 10, 2014

by Jim Nowlan
Outside Columnist

The U.S. has five percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of it prison inmates, according to Mary Ann Dyar, executive director of an Illinois prison diversion program.
We need to get smarter on whom we send to prison and for how long.
“I probably sent away a thousand or more people for drug crimes,” recalls former federal judge Mike McCuskey of his 16 years on the U.S. court bench in central Illinois. In effect, he filled up a federal prison.
I had dinner recently with old friend McCuskey, now retired from the federal bench and back serving as a state circuit court judge in Peoria.     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.