Illinois Department of Corrections to release 72 inmates sentenced in Cook County during week ending Feb. 28

There are 72 inmates sentenced in Cook County set to be released from prison during the week ending Feb. 28, according to the Illinois Department of Corrections.

In total, 68 men and four women are set to be released over this period. The longest-serving individual among them is a 73-year-old female convicted of murder with the intent to kill or injure in 2001.

Most prison inmates are released on some condition of supervised monitoring upon reentering civilian life. This monitoring can last from one year to the rest of someone’s life.

According to the Illinois Department of Corrections’ Fiscal Year 2025 financial impact statement, the cost of incarcerating an individual in a state correctional facility was about $52,843 per year. Analyses by the Illinois Sentencing Policy Advisory Council show that when personnel, fixed facility costs and administrative overhead are included, the true annual cost to house a state inmate can exceed $80,000, suggesting the financial impact of incarceration extends beyond the basic per-person figure reported by IDOC.

A 2024 Prison Policy Initiative update on local jails notes that, nationally, people held before conviction made up roughly seven in ten of all jail inmates, underscoring how pretrial detention contributes to rising incarceration counts.

Information in this article was obtained from the Illinois Department of Corrections. The source data can be found here.