Pubdate: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 Source: Chicago Tribune (IL) Copyright: 2014 Chicago Tribune Company Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/IuiAC7IZ Website: http://www.chicagotribune.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/82 Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm (Incarceration) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?199 (Mandatory Minimum Sentencing) WHEN PRISON MAKES SENSE It's about what you'd expect in a liberal state controlled by Democrats: The legislature reduced penalties for drug and property crime, spent more money on community supervision of offenders and closed three prisons in three years. But it didn't happen in California or Massachusetts. It happened in deep-red Texas. Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, has said things like "Obama's socialist policies are bankrupting America." But when it comes to crime and punishment, he thinks blindly harsh policies are also unaffordable. "We are not a softon-crime state, but I hope we get the reputation of being a smart-oncrime state," he said at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington. "You want to talk about real conservative governance, shut a prison down." That approach has not unleashed hordes of thugs to prey on innocent Texans. In fact, the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation reports, recidivism has plunged and the state has its lowest crime rate since 1968. This is one of the rare areas where bipartisanship is flourishing. Attorney General Eric Holder has called for reducing the prison sentences for federal drug crimes, which account for half of all federal inmates. In 2010, both houses of Congress voted overwhelmingly to reduce the disparity in punishment for users of crack cocaine and powder cocaine, which penalized crack possession more severely than possession of a similar amount of powder. The two parties come from different places. Many Democrats point to the disproportionate impact of incarceration among African-Americans, who are four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession even though they use the drug at no higher rates than whites. Democrats think treatment and education get short shrift in turning criminals around. Many Republicans have decided the cost of putting more and more people in prison has gotten too high to pay. What happened, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told The New York Times, "was that we built so many prisons people began to ask the question, 'Can we afford thisUKP' " Christian conservatives also stress the importance of allowing for the possibility of redemption. In the works now is federal legislation that would modestly curtail penalties for drug crimes across the board. The new formula would reduce the average prison sentence for these offenses from 62 months to 51 months. The latter amount of time should still be adequate to serve the needs of justice and deterrence. But the reduction will free up dollars that could be spent on things like mental health treatment and rehabilitation services that would help prevent recidivism. The general idea of reducing our reliance on incarceration is a good one, so long as it focuses on nonviolent offenders. In Illinois, a program to curb prison overcrowding provided for the early release of 1,754 inmates, including some violent ones. Gov. Pat Quinn had to suspend the program after his own review panel concluded it "failed to accomplish the overriding goals of the State's Code of Corrections: protecting the public's safety and restoring inmates to useful citizenship." That should be a lesson, and not just for Illinois. Done wrong, reducing sentences can be dangerous and costly. Done right, it can save money and reduce crime. Some states have shown the way to do it right, and Congress should follow their lead. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom