The impact on sentencing and incarceration from the recently passed omnibus bill HB 3653 in very significant. We discuss many of the these specific reforms on today's show. Our guest is Jobi Cates, Founder and Executive Director of Restore Justice Illinois.

This large bill is packed with reforms. It is far from everything the state legislature could have done to reform the criminal justice system or just the incarceration system we have in Illinois but on many fronts this bill equals a few good steps in the direction we need to go.

On today's show we focus exclusively on the back end of the justice system and look at how this bill specifically reforms how the state of Illinois sentences people convicted of committing crimes and how the incarceration system has been impacted.

We discuss the changes to the sentencing and incarcerations systems including:

the felony murder rule adjustmentsadjustments to how we define someone to be a habitual criminalSentencing Creditsfelony drug crimeschanges to mandatory supervised release

This is a very significant list and there are even more reforms packed in to the legislation that provide real needed changes to the sentencing and incarceration systems. Is it far enough? No. There is still plenty of work that needs to be but Illinois has taken some good steps forward.

For a discussion about how three innovative community based programs are fighting gun violence acorss Chicago check out our this podcast episode featuring representatives from Chicago CRED, READI Chicago, and Communities Partnering for Peace (CP4P) here.