Pubdate: Sun, 07 Dec 2003
Source: Dallas Morning News (TX)
Page: B03
Copyright: 2003 The Dallas Morning News
Contact:  http://www.dallasnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/117
Author: Vincent Schiraldi
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?199 (Mandatory Minimum Sentencing)

BREAKING THE CHAINS

After decades of massive prison growth, America may be ending its love 
affair with incarceration. Policymakers around the country, some of whom 
previously supported ratcheting up punishments, have begun to rethink the 
wisdom of unbridled prison expansion, and are advocating alternatives to 
simply "locking them up and throwing away the key." But if our country is 
truly to move away from its expensive and ineffective criminal justice 
policies, a balanced approach needs to become the rule, rather than the 
exception.

It is difficult to overstate the massive increase in the number of 
prisoners in the United States over the past two decades. In 1989, 
America's prison and jail population topped 1 million inmates for the first 
time in our history. Twelve years later, the number of inmates had reached 
2 million. By 2001, 5.6 million Americans were either in prison or had 
served prison time -- more than the populations of 28 states or the 
District of Columbia. The world's most celebrated democracy began the new 
millennium with the world's highest incarceration rate.

In the face of such daunting data, however, there is the beginning of a 
welcome trend -- born out of a combination of fiscal crises, changing 
attitudes about crime and research about the benefits of treatment over 
incarceration -- toward a more balanced approach to crime. According to a 
report by Judith Greene published by Families Against Mandatory Minimums, 
25 states have abolished mandatory sentencing laws, accelerated parole, 
increased time off for good behavior, diverted prisoners into treatment or 
otherwise curbed the unnecessary use of incarceration. (Families Against 
Mandatory Minimums is a sentencing reform group made up of prisoner 
families.) More than a dozen states have reduced their prison populations 
since 2000; 10 have closed one or more prisons, and two others, including 
Maryland, have announced their intention to do so. Arizona, California, 
Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Texas and Washington have reformed sentencing 
practices to divert nonviolent offenders from prison into treatment. 
Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan and North Dakota 
have either abolished or narrowed their mandatory sentencing laws.

The crack in the incarceration dam comes, in part, in response to the 
largest state budget shortfalls since World War II. In the past three years 
alone, states have faced a combined $200 billion in budget gaps. Meanwhile, 
prisons now consume a larger portion of the state budget pie -- $35 billion 
annually in 1999, up from $17 billion in 1990 -- rendering them a bigger 
target for budget cutters. From 1985 to 2000, prison budgets grew at six 
times the rate of higher education budgets.

But it would be a mistake to conclude that deficits are the only factor 
driving this trend. State budgets have seen their share of ups and downs 
over the past 30 years, but prison budgets have grown relentlessly, in good 
times and bad, since 1972. During the recession of the late 1980s and early 
1990s, state prison populations rose at a record clip, budget shortfalls 
notwithstanding.

So history suggests that dollars have never been the single motivating 
factor in prison policies. Rather, some policymakers are stepping back to 
evaluate corrections systems, finding that there is a better way to achieve 
public safety that is supported by opinion leaders and public opinion alike.

In state after state, research has called into question the effectiveness 
of imprisonment and supported the use of treatment and other alternatives 
to incarceration -- and policymakers have taken notice.

In support of his drug offender diversion bill, Ray Allen, the conservative 
chair of Texas' House Corrections Committee, quoted Rand Corp. findings 
showing that, for every dollar spent on treatment, the state would save 
between $1.50 and $2. "Treatment works," Allen flatly told the Fort Worth 
Star Telegram. Allen's bill, signed into law by Gov. Rick Perry in June, 
will divert 2,500 would-be inmates from prison into treatment.

Some policymakers have also expressed dismay about the unintended 
consequences of laws passed during the tough-on-crime hysteria of the past 
two decades. That dismay has also helped fuel the reforms.

For example, Michigan's former governor, William G. Milliken, urged in 
September 2002 that the mandatory sentencing bill he signed into law in 
1978 be repealed. "I have since come to realize that the provisions of the 
law have led to terrible injustices and that signing it was a mistake -- an 
overly punishing and cruel response that gave no discretion to a sentencing 
judge, even for extenuating circumstances," he wrote in an op-ed for the 
Detroit News. Three months later, Michigan's Republican governor, John 
Engler, signed a law, passed by the state's Republican-controlled 
legislature, that eliminated most of Michigan's mandatory sentences and 
returned discretion over sentencing to judges. The reforms were also backed 
not only by Families Against Mandatory Minimums but also by such diverse 
bedfellows as the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan.

Support for reforms is not limited to the states. At this year's American 
Bar Association (ABA) conference, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy 
spoke passionately of the "inadequacies and injustices in our corrections 
system." The Reagan appointee declared in August, "Our resources are 
misspent, our punishments too severe, our sentences too long." As a result 
of Kennedy's speech, ABA president-elect Dennis Archer established the 
"Kennedy Commission" to examine America's penal policies, making sentencing 
reform a major focus of the nation's largest legal association.

Public support for the reforms is a logical extension of the public's 
waning appetite for punishment as crime has declined. An ABC News poll last 
year found that nine in 10 Americans favor treatment programs over prison 
for first-time drug offenders, while a Parade Magazine survey, also last 
year, revealed that 88 percent of Americans feel that people convicted of 
nonviolent crimes should be sentenced to community service instead of 
prison. While 42 percent of respondents to a 1994 Gallup poll thought that 
the best approach to crime control was increasing funding for law 
enforcement and prisons, only 29 percent of respondents to a Hart and 
Associates poll felt that way in December 2001.

Not every state is implementing smart prison reforms, of course. In 
several, there has been talk of change, but it has stalled. New York's 
legislature and governor have agreed that the Rockefeller Drug Laws, which 
mandate life sentences for even first-time drug offenders, should be 
amended. But they have yet to agree on an approach, leaving the laws 
untouched since the 1970s.

In September, Attorney General John Ashcroft ordered his prosecutors to 
seek the most serious possible charges on almost all federal cases. 
Ironically, his home state of Missouri passed legislation earlier this year 
that will divert 1,300 offenders from prison into community supervision.

Despite notable progress, we have far to go if we are truly to curb our 
imprisonment binge. In the final analysis, Justice Kennedy is right: It's 
time to forge a new consensus on prison policies. In other words, having 
proven we can be tough on crime, we must now show we can be smart on crime 
as well.

Vincent Schiraldi is executive director of the Washington-based Justice 
Policy Institute.
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