Officials claim no data on gang crackdown

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- After gang cross fire killed four children in the Chicago area last year, Gov. George Ryan dispatched hundreds of parole agents and prison guards to help sweep the streets free of trouble-making ex-convicts.

But it's unclear whether that message got through.

State officials say they have no records showing how many parolees have been picked up, why, or what happened to them. Nor can they say how much money or manpower was put into "Operation Windy City," an ongoing program of incursions into crime-marred neighborhoods.

"What! Are you serious?" asked state Rep. Lovana "Lou" Jones, D-Chicago, a member of House prison reform and judiciary committees.

"You can't take state dollars and state personnel and use them in this capacity, and then nobody has a record of how many were picked up, how many were sent back or how much was spent," she said.

In June and July 2000, gang gunfire killed children in Chicago and Cicero. Ryan and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley set up Operation Windy City to reduce violence by picking up parole violators.

Ryan declared the initiative a success at a Sept. 19, 2000 news conference. His office offered numbers from the program's first two months.

What happened from there is anybody's guess.