Illinois Sentencing Dashboard: Prison and Probation Sentences

To help practitioners, policy makers and the public understand variations, trends and patterns in felony sentencing in Illinois, Loyola’s Center for Criminal Justice developed this Illinois Sentencing Dashboard.

Under Illinois law, individuals convicted of First-Degree Murder and Class X felonies must be sentenced to prison. But most prison sentences in Illinois are imposed for other felony-level offenses—Class 1 through 4 felonies—for which a sentence to prison is not mandatory, and individuals can instead be sentenced to a period of community-supervision (i.e., probation). For each year since 2003, the Illinois Sentencing Dashboard shows the number of prison and probation sentences imposed for all Class 1 through 4 Felonies, and allows users to compare sentencing across Illinois’ 102 individual counties and 25 judicial circuits, between urban and rural communities, and by geographic region.

Sources: Felony probation data reported to the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts by county probation departments, combined with data from the Illinois Department of Corrections regarding the number of people sentenced and admitted to prison for Class 1 to 4 felonies.