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| Automated System Decides Criminals Fate |
| By The Sun-News of the Northland |
| Published: 11/14/2005 |
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The system provides recommended sentences for each offense, when information is entered about the crime and offenders criminal history. The Missouri Department of Corrections says this system is useful in guilty plea negotiations between prosecutors and defense attorneys. Platte County Prosecutor Eric Zahnd said that the system is "ridiculous." "These are not required guidelines they are just recommended, and I hope that in most cases judges ignore them," Zahnd said. "We hand out much stiffer sentences in Platte County than what is recommended by these guidelines." Kim Green, Executive Director of the Missouri Sentencing Advisory Commission said most prosecutors throughout the state would not agree with Zahnd. "There is no correlation between drop in crime and increase in prison population," Green said. "There's a feel good factor that if you put people in prison, that you'll be safer and that's not usually the case, we do not build prisons to house DWI offenders and bad check writers." Sentencing recommendations are based on a new pre-sentence investigation format, which will provide judges with information for making sentencing decisions. The Board of Probation and Parole has partnered with MOSAC to create Sentencing Assessment Reports after a collaborative effort by judges, lawyers, probation officers and others in the criminal justice system. "Judicial discretion will always be the cornerstone of our judicial system," Michael Wolff Missouri chief justice and MOSAC chairman said. "We are confident that this new tool will get important information into the sentencing procedure more quickly and allow judges to consider, where appropriate, alternatives to imprisonment, especially for nonviolent offenders." The guidelines recommend a community-structured sentence for crimes such as second-degree murder and forcible rape. This is a non-prison sentence that is served in the community under a plan of strict supervision, which may include home-based incarceration (electric monitoring) or other strategies for community supervision and may also require the offender to attend substance abuse or other community rehabilitative programs such as anger management. Crimes such as first-degree involuntary manslaughter and second degree statutory rape are recommended for probation. A first offense conviction of first degree statutory rape, which is sexual intercourse with someone less than 14-years-old, resulting in injury or death is recommended for a community-structured sentence. Jody Malone, who murdered a woman at the Bicycle Club Apartments in July 2003 received a 25-year sentence for murder and armed criminal action. Malone had only one misdemeanor conviction, meaning he would be characterized as having Level I Prior Criminal History under the recommended sentencing structure set forth by the Missouri Sentencing Advisory Commission. "Depending on whether a judge viewed his crime as having mitigating, presumptive, or aggravating circumstances, the recommended sentence for his murder would be somewhere between a "Community Structured Sentence," which is essentially glorified probation, and 15 years in prison," Zahnd said. "According to the Missouri Sentencing Advisory Commission, the only way a person charged with second degree murder or forcible rape should receive a 30-year sentence is if that person has committed at least four prior felonies or been to prison at least twice. That's wrong." The goal of MOSAC is to reduce sentencing disparity, Green said. "It's not a political issue, it's common sense," Green said. "If judges buy into the guidelines and use them, I guarantee there would be a significant reduction in the number of people going into prison." U.S. Department of Justice statistics show, in 2004, Missouri's incarceration rate ranked eighth in the nation. One in 25 of Missouri males are in prison or on probation or parole and the state's prison population has risen from 15,409 in 1993 to more than 30,000 today. Non-violent offenders are said to be 55 percent of the prison population. "Drugs are the overriding reason for male and female overpopulation in the prison system," Green said. "The worst is meth and it's powerful. That's what drives the prison population. Certain things beget certain things but let's face it drugs are the drive." The DOC says that despite massive prison construction in the 1990's, the female prison population is above capacity at nearly triple the 1993 total. The male total is expected to exceed bed space by 2007. "We are bordering on a crisis and if Missouri wants to keep building prisons then that's what they should do," Green said. "But I don't think that's the answer." With the proposed 2006 budget at $568 million, the DOC is encouraging the wisest use of the state's funding for corrections. The commission's sentencing recommendations encourage alternative sentences for "low-risk" non-violent offenders. The Sentencing Assessment Reports arrange Missouri crimes into five groups: violent, non-violent, sex crimes and child abuse, drugs and driving while intoxicated. Crimes in each category are rated on severity as high to medium to low. The severity level is based on the average prison sentence actually imposed for each offense or by the percentage of offenders who received prison terms in the previous year. "We're trying to give them an equality," Green said. "In actuality we don't expect to have any baring on class felonies, these are serious cases. We are creating a new leniency. Judicial discretion is here to stay." In the sentencing, decisions are made based on what judges have done in similar cases, the resources available, the risk that the offender will re-offend and the actual meaning of the sentence. If an offender is sentenced to a certain term in prison, it is asked how long the offender will actually serve before the possibility of parole. "We know that previous offenders with drug or alcohol problems, little education, and no job skills or employment history are at a significantly higher risk for re-offending," Wolff said. "With a rating system that uses these factors, we feel we can give the courts a fairly good estimate of an offender's likelihood for success at a non-prison sentence." The offender's criminal history and offense severity is coupled with the risk assessment of the offender. Probation officers writing the reports can make recommendations to the court as to the appropriate options for sentencing based upon the Sentencing Advisory Commission's recommendations. "I believe the role of judges in our society should be to take every case as they come and hand out a just sentence," Zahnd said. "I have a philosophical opposition to systems which take discretion away from judges. When you start recommending to a judge probation for a murder or rapist, I believe the system loses any credibility that it ever had." |
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