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| State House to Address Sentencing Reform |
| By free-times.com |
| Published: 01/20/2010 |
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Fingers are crossed in the State House and beyond that all of the hard work that has gone into the Sentencing Reform Commission will result in legislation that will save the state money and better protect its citizens. With a little luck, observers say the commission’s recommendations will avoid the political graveyard that has snared several “sure thing” bills over the past few years. A draft report will hit members’ desks next week, with a full public report to follow Feb. 1. A bill could be debated as early as March, sources say. Without a little luck, the recommendations might become a political football in an election year in the House, where candidates could portray the sentencing recommendations as soft-on-crime mistakes. The commission was formed in 2008 by state Sen. Glenn McConnell (R-Charleston), the president pro tempore of the Senate who chairs the chamber’s Judiciary Committee. The commission’s mandate was to recommend changes to the state’s guidelines for felonies, reform its parole system and offer alternatives to incarceration. While some hoped the commission would begin the process of rolling back what have been described as overzealous legal reactions to crack cocaine, the impetus behind the commission’s creation was more financial than empathetic. Over the past three decades, the state has seen its criminal justice system become increasingly more expensive and expansive. In 1983, the state spent just over $63 million on prisons, according to state Sen. Gerald Malloy (D-Hartsville), who McConnell named to chair the commission. In 2008, by contrast, the state spent more than $394 million, a 500 percent increase. Malloy, the former president of the state’s association of trial lawyers, said that annual per-inmate spending climbed from $14,000 to $29,000 over that time. Prison population has more that tripled, too, from 7,526 in 1978 to 24,460 this past summer. Currently, the state’s total corrections budget is $487 million, but the Department of Corrections has regularly exceeded its allotment, carrying a hefty deficit for several years. Malloy said many of the recommendations would center on how the state handled non-violent drug offenders. The rise of crack and mandatory sentencing, he said, has added to the overcrowding and increased expense. Expected recommendations in next week’s draft report will include revisions to mandatory sentencing rules and potentially new alternative sentencing options. Judges, argued Malloy, should have clearer sentencing guidelines that allow them the flexibility to take into account the true nature of a crime. Victoria Middleton, executive director for the state ACLU chapter, said a wrinkle in state law has been that a person carrying drugs in their car gets a heightened sentence if they happen to be stopped in front of a school. She said they were often not dealing or using at a school setting, but ended up getting a “proximity” charge that adds to their sentences and to prison expenses. Malloy said the recommendations would not go easier on dealers, traffickers or manufacturers. But they would push for cheaper and, some argue, more effective sentencing alternatives, such as treatment and supervision. “If we can take a drug offender through ‘drug court’ and treatment for $5,000, it’s much better than the $15,000 we’re spending to incarcerate them,” said commission member Rep. Murrell Smith (R- Sumter). Smith, an attorney and former public defender, said the push for alternative sentencing could “dovetail easily” with state Attorney General Henry McMaster’s proposed middle court system, which seeks to divert non-violent crime away from costly incarceration. A fan of treating addicts versus just punishing them, the ACLU’s Middleton nonetheless criticized the middle court plan because it would create extra cost and be housed under the attorney general’s office and not the judicial branch. Several sources said changing sentencing guidelines become the most problematic of the recommendations, especially in an election year. For example, if a legislator advocates diverting first-time, non-violent drug offenders to treatment, such a position could easily become “putting druggies back on the street” in the hands of a political challenger. And what would be said to those already serving longer sentences for similar drug charges? Malloy shrugged, saying, “The best we can do is put the state in a better position for the future.” Additionally, there has been a push across the state and at the State House for other controversial recommendations, such as warrantless searches for parolees. Read More. |
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