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| Law Releases Some Mich. Drug Offenders |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 02/27/2003 |
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More than 200 prison inmates will be released early starting next week under a new law that eliminates mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes. The law takes effect Saturday. Forty of the 258 first-time drug offenders already granted parole under the new law will leave prison on March 6, said Russ Marlan, spokesman for the Department of Corrections. State Rep. Bill McConico, a Detroit Democrat who sponsored the bill, said families affected by Michigan's strict drug law will have reason to celebrate next week. 'We're going to have the opportunity for people and families to be reunited who were torn apart by a draconian sentence structure,' he said Wednesday. Under the current law, someone possessing 50 to 224 grams of narcotics or cocaine in Michigan must be sentenced to at least 10 years and up to 20 years in prison. The new law eliminates the 10-year minimum, allowing the judge to sentence an offender for any time up to 20 years. He also said as many as 700 first-time, nonviolent drug offenders who became eligible for parole early under the new law could be home by October, Marlan said. The new law takes effect as the prison population gets dangerously close to its 50,000 capacity and the state faces a $1.7 billion deficit in the upcoming fiscal year. If the parole board agrees to release all 1,250 nonviolent, first-time drug inmates - each of whom costs $28,000 a year to house and feed - the state would save up to $35 million a year. Laura Sager, executive director of the Washington-based Families Against Mandatory Minimums, said the new law will affect the future prison population because it gives sentencing discretion to judges. 'This really does allow judges to use criminal history and the role of the offender in the crime to impose more appropriate sentences,' she said Some prison officials don't think the new law will affect the prison population in the future because most drug sentences involve a plea agreement. 'Judges already were not using it for a significant part of the population,' said Steve DeBor, administrator of research and planning for the corrections department. |
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Sounds like they have got a lot going around there, I might visit this site more often to know all the different updates on the new law release, The Law Releases on Some Mich. Drug Offenders is going to be a good change for many of us.