The first prison inmates to go free under Illinois' new early release program could be home within a month.
Illinois Corrections Director Michael Randle said Monday that it will take two to four weeks to review the prisoners' files, inspect the places they'll be living and set them up with a parole agent and electronic monitoring.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Randle said it's not clear how long it will take to process all the roughly 1,000 prisoners eligible for early release.
He stressed that these are nonviolent offenders who were sentenced to less than one year in prison. In other words, Randle said, they would be going home soon anyway.
Gov. Pat Quinn said last week that he'll release 1,000 nonviolent offenders this fall in an effort save the state $5 million a year.
