Pubdate: Thu, 24 Apr 2003
Source: Wilmington Morning Star (NC)
Copyright: 2003 Wilmington Morning Star
Contact:  http://www.wilmingtonstar.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/500
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm (Incarceration)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?199 (Mandatory Minimum Sentencing)

INEFFICIENT INCARCERATION

North Carolina's taxpayers can't afford to lock up small-fry crooks for 
years on end. It might be good politics, but it's bad money management.

Yet that's what we've been doing. If we keep it up, experts say, we might 
have to build a new 1,000-bed prison every year. A hoosegow of that 
magnitude runs about $90 million, which doesn't include the cost of 
staffing and maintaining it.

We already have more than 33,000 people behind bars. Every year, that total 
is rising by about 1,000.

It's those alarming numbers that have prompted legislators to reconsider 
the way North Carolina sentences its convicts. The goal is to keep 
dangerous criminals locked up for a long time, but not stuff expensive 
cells with minor malefactors.

Under current sentencing law, you could be sent to the pen for 14 years if 
you were convicted four times of such offenses as breaking into boats or 
extracting coins from a Coke machine.

Nobody is suggesting that such crimes aren't serious. But murderers, 
rapists and armed robbers pose a far greater threat to the rest of us than 
losers who steal from boats or Coke machines.

And it makes little sense to impose sentences of many years on people 
caught with small quantities of illegal drugs.

The N.C. House is thinking about tinkering with the sentencing law so that 
judges aren't required to throw the book at people nailed for more than 
three minor crimes. The book would remain handy for throwing at violent 
criminals and those convicted of drug trafficking.

That would make excellent sense.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager