A study of the way people are sentenced to prison in Missouri suggests more people would be better off if they did NOT go to prison. Reported on MissouriNet.

The Missouri Sentencing Advisory Commission evaluates people on several criteria after they’ve pleaded guilty or after they’ve been convicted. The commission determines the risk factors that each person will re-offend when they’re released from custody.

Every two years it assesses how sentencing works. More than three-fourths of the times the commission recommends probation, a judge agrees. If the commission recommends probation and the judge sends someone to prison, the recidivism rate is measurably higher.

Commission chairman Michael Wolff, a Supreme Court judge, says 120 days of shock time in prison might not be the best. “Recidivism rates for people convicted given probation for theft were like 19 or 20 percent. The recidivism rate for people who went to prison was 48 percent…But the recidivism rate for people who went to the 120-day (shock time prison) program…were 45 percent.”‘

Wolff says the study suggests that’s because they spend their time associating with other offenders–while they’d be associating with better people if they had been put on probation.

The commission says more than half of Missouri’s prison inmates are nonviolent offenders whose risk of re-offending are increased by their time in prison.

The report is available at http://www.mosac.mo.gov.

janchavarie Missouri, Sentencing

Hundreds of hearings are being held statewide for prison inmates to have their sentences reduced under a new state law.  Lane County Circuit Court is handling more of the hearings than the expected, said court administrator Liz Rambo. Reported by KVAL News.

On Wednesday, Lane County District Attorney Alex Gardner released this statement:

Since we have been receiving many media inquiries on the subject of so-called “3508 hearings”, I’m sending a formal statement of my position. It distills to these few points:

1. Sharply declining revenue left the legislature with difficult financial choices.
2. Oregon’s District Attorneys opposed increasing so-called “good time” (aka: “earned time”) from 20% to 30% and offered lower-risk money-saving alternatives to the legislature
3. “Earned Time” is a misnomer for the additional 10%, as the judges are prohibited from considering an inmate’s prison conduct in making related decisions.
4. Although these hearings are a substantial burden on our offices, Oregon District Attorneys are meeting the demand and protecting our communities within the law as the legislature has defined it.

janchavarie OR Lane County, Sentencing

More death row convicts were executed in the United States this year than last, but juries continue to grow more wary of capital punishment, according to a new report. News from The New York Times.

Death sentences handed down by judges and juries in 2009 continued a trend of decline for seven years in a row, with 106 projected for the year. That level is down two-thirds from a peak of 328 in 1994, according to the report being released Friday by the Death Penalty Information Center, a research organization that opposes capital punishment.

“This entire decade has been marked by a declining use of the death penalty,” said Richard Dieter, the executive director of the group.

The sentencing drop was most striking in Texas, which averaged 34 death sentences a year in the 1990s and had 9 this year. Vic Wisner, a former assistant district attorney in Houston, said a “constant media drumbeat” about suspect convictions and exonerations “has really changed the attitude of jurors.”

Mr. Wisner said that while polls showed continued general support for capital punishment, “there is a real worry by jurors of, ‘I believe in it, but what if we later find out it was someone else and it’s too late to do anything about it?’ ”

In 2005, Texas juries were given the option of sentencing defendants to life without parole.

While death sentences are in decline, executions rose in the past year, according to the new report. Fifty-two prisoners have been put to death in 2009, compared with 42 in 2007 and 37 in 2008.

The report also noted that in 2009 New Mexico became the 15th state to repeal the death penalty, in part because of budget considerations and the high cost of death penalty appeals, which Gov. Bill Richardson called “a valid reason” for eliminating the ultimate sanction “in this era of austerity and tight budgets.”

But Kent Scheidegger, the legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, which supports capital punishment, argued that the decline in death sentences also corresponded to a decline in the murder rate, and criticized efforts to use cost arguments against the death penalty. The government could “knock a large chunk off of the cost” of execution by streamlining the review process, he said.

Douglas A. Berman, an expert on sentencing law at Ohio State University, suggested that the rise in executions was due to last year’s relatively low number, as states grappled with the implications of a major 2008 Supreme Court decision on lethal injection.

In that case, Baze v. Rees, the court ended what amounted to a moratorium of several months, beginning in 2007, on lethal injection executions by proclaiming that the procedure used in Kentucky and other states with similar methods did not violate the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

This “post-Baze echo” in the figures, Mr. Berman said, can be seen in the execution in Ohio this month of Kenneth Biros. It came after a legal challenge to Ohio’s protocol, a botched execution under the state’s three-drug method for another prisoner, and a shift to a one-drug execution method. While other court challenges to lethal injection are proceeding around the country, he said, Ohio’s action suggests that “states are moving forward.”

janchavarie Death Penalty, Sentencing, United States

Initiatives to reduce incarceration, according to Jane Klekamp, the director of the La Crosse County Justice Sanctions program, are not always popular. Story from the News Republic.

Speaking to about 14 members of the Portage community Tuesday in St. Mary’s Catholic School cafeteria, Klekamp said that various programs used in her home county have helped to decrease the incarcerated population and prevented millions in incarceration costs.

“We have focused so much on the punishment side of this that I think we have just lost sight of what would be the most helpful,” Klekamp said.

Justice Sanctions takes advantage of various initiatives that focus on changing people’s behavior instead of just punishment — initiatives like a alcohol and drug court systems that focus on treatment instead of jail for certain offenders, and programs that help people reinstate their drivers’ licenses after they are revoked.

Klekamp said that the program saves the use of about 244 beds per day in the county at a savings of $73 per bed. Meanwhile, Klekamp said it costs her program about $13-$19 per day for each of those they are trying to keep out of jail.

Klekamp said that despite the successes of Justice Sanctions it is still hard to get political support for their programs.

“Motivating the system to change is as complicated as getting any person to change. It is no easier,” she said.

The speaker was hosted by the Columbia County Community Corrections Council, which operates the Circles of Support program. The Circles of Support program helps mentor individual offenders once they leave jail. The program is funded by Columbia County and depends on volunteers.

John Kinsler, who is with the council and is also a volunteer in the Circles program, said Tuesday that the Council is looking for a new program to initiate. He said Klekamp and future speakers will help the council decide where they can be most effective in Columbia County.

“Right now what we are trying to say is that Circles of Support is somewhat stable. We need more volunteers but it is making an impact on people’s re-offense and so what else can we do,” Kinsler said.

The more avenues of support, Kinsler said, the better.

“If you have only got one spoke on a wheel, it is kind of a rough ride, and as you add more spokes it kind of smooths it out a bit,” he said.

Whichever spoke the council decides to work on next, he knows that it will need to have a minimal cost and function primarily on community support or grants. There is no available money in Columbia County’s budget.

Columbia County Supervisor Richard Boockmeier, who represents parts of Portage on the board and serves on a committee that oversees the county’s justice system, said that the alternative programs have merit but said that there is little financial or political support to be found in the county government.

“Circles of Support is a pretty effective program but it is not a popular program among county board supervisors. A lot of them don’t like it because it is too liberal. They want to buy bars,” Boockmeier said.

That is not how Boockmeier sees it though.

“The less people we have in jail the better our community is going to be,” he said.

janchavarie Alternative Sentencing, WI La Crosse County

The Supreme Court of Kentucky suspended executions in the state Wednesday, ruling that officials did not follow state law in adopting its procedures for killing inmates. Reported in the New York Times.

The decision did not address whether it is inhumane to use a three-drug cocktail in lethal injections, as critics have argued.

The Kentucky case concerned three inmates slated for execution: Brian Keith Moore, Ralph Baze and Thomas C. Bowling.

Mr. Baze’s case made its way to the United States Supreme Court, which stopped lethal injections across the country until last year, when it issued an opinion declaring Kentucky’s death penalty method — using the three-drug cocktail — to be constitutional.

The Kentucky justices said the Department of Corrections must follow the rules of the state’s administrative procedures act in the protocol for lethal injection, which include publication of the details of the procedure and public hearings on the matter.

“The Department of Corrections is required by Kentucky law to promulgate a regulation as to all portions of the lethal injection protocol except those limited issues of internal management that are purely of concern to department personnel,” wrote Justice Lisabeth Hughes Abramson for the majority of the court.

Gov. Steve Beshear issued a statement on Wednesday, saying his administration would “carefully review the decision and consider which steps we need to take.” Kentucky has 36 inmates on death row.

Megan McCracken, a lawyer with the Death Penalty Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley, hailed the Kentucky decision, saying it “will shine light on the lethal injection process and create accountability for the procedures that are used.”

Similar court challenges led to new regulations in California and Maryland, and Nebraska recently published a proposed protocol, Ms. McCracken said.

But Kent Scheidegger, the legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in Sacramento, Calif., a group that supports the death penalty, said, “This has nothing to do with the validity of the protocol, avoiding suffering, or transparency in decision making.” Instead, he said, “It is purely a stalling tactic.”

The dissenting Kentucky justices stated a similar view.

In a partial dissent, Justice Bill Cunningham wrote that the court’s decision “turns on a sterile technicality” and would lead to further challenges and delay — “maybe much more delay” — in death penalty cases. Justice Will T. Scott wrote that all three men’s crimes occurred more than a decade ago, and one, 30 years ago.

“These cases cry out for closure. The families of the victims cry out for closure,” he wrote. “Respect for our law erodes when timely punishment is not given its fair place upon the scales of justice.”

Mr. Baze told The Associated Press that he understood that his execution was likely to go forward eventually, but applauded the decision. “It gets us through Christmas,” he said. “That’s a couple of months. That’s good.”

The Kentucky opinion was handed down on the same day that the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati, refused to stop an execution in Ohio based on a challenge to that state’s protocol for lethal injection.

The convict in that case, Kenneth Biros, faces death by lethal injection on Dec. 8, but obtained a stay of execution based on his argument that Ohio’s old protocol — which used the three-drug method — constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. But because of the shift to a single drug, the court said, “any challenge to Ohio’s three-drug execution protocol is now moot.” It left open the possibility that Mr. Biros or other prisoners might challenge the new one-drug protocol.

Prof. Douglas A. Berman, an authority on sentencing law at Ohio State University, said judges around the country were coming down on opposite sides of the same question and asked, “Where are we going to let the risk of error lie?”

Judges who are uncomfortable with the death penalty, he said, “will usually want to be shown that every possible error, every possible risk of error has been eliminated” before allowing an execution. Others, he said, “will say, ‘close enough for government work.’ ”

janchavarie Kentucky, Sentencing

The Massachusetts Bar Association is pleased that sentencing reform in Massachusetts cleared a major hurdle when the Legislature passed an MBA-backed bill that grants parole eligibility to nonviolent drug offenders serving mandatory minimum sentences.

“We applaud the Senate’s action on sentencing legislation,” said MBA General Counsel/Acting Executive Director Martin W. Healy. “Passage of mandatory minimum reforms will not only save the commonwealth million of dollars, but reduce the rate of recidivism among offenders.”

A long-standing opponent of mandatory minimum sentences, the MBA’s Drug Policy Task Force issued a report earlier this year recommending meaningful drug sentencing reform. The organization maintains the astronomical increase in the state’s correctional population – at a cost of $48,000 per offender annually – is partly due to an increase in drug arrests.

Under the current sentencing laws, nonviolent drug offenders face a one-size-fits-all system and have no incentive to plead guilty because judges have no discretion over sentences, according to MBA.

“It’s a giant step forward,” MBA Drug Policy Task Force Chair and Past President David W. White Jr. said of the legislation. “People have been arguing for sentencing reform for decades. We’re only halfway there, but it is a sea change.”

In addition to the cost savings, this legislation would reduce recidivism. Instead of being released directly into the community, offenders would be eligible for parole and work release programs.

Numerous studies have shown these programs help offenders re-enter the community and prevent them from re-offending, which approves public safety, according to the MBA.

The bill now awaits action by the House of Representatives. Formal legislative sessions have ended for the year and will resume in January.

janchavarie Massachusetts, Parole, Sentencing

A federal bill that would impose mandatory jail time for serious drug crimes would increase the workload of the parole system, and the government intends to inject more than $23.3 million over five years to ease the burden, according to the commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada. Reported by Canwest News Services.

Commissioner Don Head said at a Senate committee hearing Thursday that if the bill is passed, CSC will receive an additional $23.3 million over the next five years to support an expected increase in cases for the National Parole Board.

The parole board supervises both federal offenders who are sentenced to two years or more, and provincial offenders in some provinces.

Under the proposed legislation, mandatory sentences would be handed out to everyone convicted of a serious drug offence, such as trafficking, production, and possession for the purpose of trafficking narcotics. A person who grows five to 200 marijuana plants with intent to sell would get a minimum six-month sentence. An addict selling heroin to fellow addicts near a park could go away for two years.

Head said that while there’s no evidence that federal prison populations will increase with mandatory sentences, provincial institutions likely will be affected by the proposed changes outlined in the Conservative government’s Bill C-15, which is now being debated in the Senate.

“There’s going to be some impact in terms of (provincial) sentence populations and (the provinces) will have to re-visit their approach to providing programs to provincial offenders,” Head said after his testimony. “At this point, the figures that we have don’t allow us to draw definitive conclusions in terms of the impact on the federal institutional population, and we’ll continue to assess that as time goes on.”

Head said CSC continues to invest in prison substance abuse programs and treatment.

Critics of Canada’s proposed mandatory drug sentences compare them to similar failed U.S. policies and say they lead to prison overcrowding and end up punishing street-level dealers, most of whom are drug addicts who need treatment, not jail time, they say.

Furthermore, the bill would imprison people who do not pose an immediate threat to the public, said Neil Boyd, criminology professor at Simon Fraser University in suburban Vancouver.

“Bill C-15 will have the unfortunate consequences of annually jailing thousands of Canadians who do not threaten the social fabric any more than those who produce, in a regulated framework, drugs such as tobacco and alcohol,” Boyd said at Thursday’s hearing.

He asked for an amendment to the bill so that cannabis growers are not treated along the same lines as heroin and cocaine traffickers.

Boyd also said the bill, when applied to the recorded number of British Columbia’s marijuana cultivators, would cost a total of almost $30 million annually for the additional imprisonments.

According to CSC, 80 per cent of offenders have grappled with substance abuse, and for approximately 50 per cent of them, there was a direct link between their crimes and substance abuse.

Head said CSC has an anti-drug strategy to combat illicit substances in prisons, with $122 million in funding announced in August 2008 for the next five years. He acknowledged the difficulty in ensuring that institutions remain drug-free.

The Senate will continue to hear testimony and is expected to go through the bill’s legislation clause-by-clause on Dec. 3.

janchavarie Canada, Parole, Sentencing

Canyon County considers a May election after Tuesday’s jail bond defeat; authorities worry about crime, and consequences with no teeth. The failure last week of a bond measure to pay for a new Canyon County jail leaves officials stymied on how to deal with overcrowding — and with a lawsuit-sparked limit on the number of inmates the jail can house. One alternative: sentence criminals to the Sheriff’s Inmate Labor Detail, like this one cleaning up trash at the Canyon County public shooting range. Complete details in the Idaho Statesman.

Local officials have long lamented the overcrowding at Canyon County’s jail. But now that the prisoner population has been capped to ward off a civil-rights lawsuit, local police and court leaders are equally worried about the toll from keeping the jail uncrowded.

“We’re letting people out of jail I really wish could be kept in jail,” said Caldwell police Chief Chris Allgood. “And most people with misdemeanors don’t even go to jail in the first place, because there’s no room.

“I believe the people who regularly commit crimes will realize they won’t be going to jail, and the deterrent will go away,” Allgood said. “Our crime rate could go back up.”

Police issue tickets or book and release nonviolent offenders who otherwise would go directly to jail. Prosecutors are seeking, and judges are granting, varied alternative sentences for crimes that earlier would have landed the perpetrators behind bars.

“My perception is, everyone is frustrated that Canyon County’s brand of justice can’t be enforced any more because the jail can’t hold the people,” County Prosecutor John Bujak said Friday, three days after voters defeated a $46 million bond measure to build a new, much bigger jail.

County leaders are considering putting the jail issue back on the ballot, possibly in May. But even if the bond had passed Tuesday, it would have taken at least two years to get the new jail up and running.

And in the meantime, the county must abide by an agreement it forged with the American Civil Liberties Union to keep the jail population within state standards. The August pact, prompted by a class-action lawsuit alleging inhumane conditions, means no more than 296 inmates in a structure that has held as many as twice that number in recent years. About 60 more can be kept in the adjacent 1940s-era jail, now known as “the annex.”

As a result of the inmate cap, local law enforcement agencies have signed agreements with the county not to jail most misdemeanor offenders.

“We’ll still take people to jail for anything violent – domestic violence, violation of protection orders,” Allgood said. “The jail has worked very well with us to take the people we bring in. They may have to make room somewhere else.”

Report continues on the Idaho Statesman.

janchavarie Early Release, ID Canyon County, Idaho, Overcrowding, Sentencing

Given enough time, any pendulum, even the long arm of the law, will swing in the opposite direction. That’s what is happening in South Carolina, where the state Sentencing Reform Commission has been working to reduce or erase prison time for convictions that had been heretofore considered serious.

In the ’60s, simple possession of a single marijuana cigarette in some states could result in several years in jail.

In the ’80s, when crack cocaine exploded onto the drug scene and fueled a crime wave, federal and state governments set up draconian differences in punishments between traditional powder cocaine and the smoke-able rock.

Now, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has announced that his department will not be using the federal Justice Department’s limited resources to pursue cases against “medical” marijuana sellers. And the top lawman in South Carolina, state Attorney General Henry McMaster, advocates a “middle” court system that diverts non-violent criminals, some first-time offenders and others from prison into a beefed-up probation system.

So, has South Carolina gone “soft on crime”?

Not by any means. What has been happening is a re-jiggering of the balance point between keeping society safe and the state’s fiscal bottom line. While there’s still a lot of work to be done on sentencing reform, components of a reform package next year could include:

• Creation of a middle court system for non-violent offenders.
• Compassionate release for seriously ill inmates.
• Broader use of longer probation, including the possible appearance before original sentencing judge before release.

To work toward that, a commission comprised of state representatives, senators, lawyers, judges, prison officials and others have been meeting for months to see how to lighten the load on non-violent drug offenders, the prison system and the state’s operating budget.

According to a February presentation given to the Sentencing Reform Commission by the state Department of Corrections, there are three major reasons for the increase in prison population.

First, drug offenders. Second, mandatory sentencing. Third, “truth in sentencing” laws, through which offenders cannot be paroled until they’ve served a minimum of 85 percent of their original sentence.

Corrections officials say that not only have more inmates been incarcerated in their facilities, but also that the inmates are staying longer.

“The prison system is now housing 10 times the number of drug law violators [than] incarcerated in 1980,” the February 2009 report said. The report also stated the proposed middle court system would greatly reduce the number of inmates, and that non-“truth in sentencing” criminals were significantly less likely to return to prison after release or parole.

To house an inmate in 2006, the state spent more than $13,000 a year. As of Oct. 15, S.C. Department of Corrections facilities were 99.8 percent full at 24,098 inmates, according to its web site.

The SCDC is the only state department consistently running a major, multi-million dollar annual budget deficit. With enhanced and mandatory sentencing, some fear that the department’s deficit could continue to grow unless something is done to stem crime or reduce the number of prisoners in the system.

A former vice cop, State Sen. Jake Knotts (R-Lexington) helped lock up people on drug possession and simple use charges that would draw a fine today.

“The balancing point has changed, has moved,” Knotts said, because of the enormous expense of housing an inmate and changing national sentiment on non-serious drug crimes.

Knotts, who is serving on the Sentencing Reform Commission, said some of the blame for overcrowding falls on his former colleagues, who have focused on arresting users and street-level dealers to bolster their arrest records and increase the amount of grant money their departments could receive. He said police and courts need to focus more on the major distributors.

But Knotts said drug crimes are not “victimless,” and that more needed to be done to protect society from them.

Rep. Murrell Smith (R-Sumter), a former public defender who also serves on the commission, said South Carolina is one of the latest in the country to address prison overcrowding and expense through a reexamination of its sentencing guidelines.

“The states you think of being more ‘hardcore’ about criminals — Mississippi, Alabama, Texas — have already gone through this process,” Smith said. “What we’re talking about here isn’t ‘theory’ or propaganda; it’s empirical data.”

Both Knotts and Smith said the Sentencing Reform Commission, with its members’ disparate points of view, has largely been able to reach consensus on what its recommendations are likely to be next year.

Crystal ball: The state is facing a financial crisis in its prison system, where too many inmates staying too long are costing too much money. But how will reducing sentencing, or releasing to treatment those who would normally have been incarcerated, play in the upcoming election year in one of the nation’s most politically conservative states? That remains to be seen.

janchavarie Sentencing, South Carolina

A trend has emerged within the past three years that sees fewer inmates sentenced to West Virginia’s regional jails for minor crimes — but that has made barely a dent in overcrowding.  Reported by the Register-Herald.

Since 2007, the number of misdemeanor sentencings has fallen by 1,935 inmates, Regional Jail Director Terry Miller told a legislative panel Monday.  In a 12-county southern region, only two counties bucked the trend. Monroe, for instance, has committed 34 such inmates this year, contrasted with 20 the previous year and five in 2007. Nicholas County witnessed an upswing from 201 in 2007 to 284 this year.

Overall, the downward trend is a positive sign at a time when prison overcrowding is a major concern, suggested Delegate Dave Perry, co-chairman of the Legislative Oversight Committee on Regional Jail and Correctional Facility Authority. “That’s positive,” Perry said, adding that the effect of day reporting centers and other community corrections efforts cannot be underestimated. Even with this trend, however, Perry said the Legislature faces a huge task in easing crowded prisons. “It’s not adequate to address the number of beds available,” he said. “If you look at the Division of Corrections numbers, there is still a large number of inmates that are housed in regional jails that should be in the DOC.”

As of the last headcount taken Thursday, the 10-facility jail system contained 3,962 inmates, or 1,178 above the maximum for which they were designed. Among that number were 1,299 inmates sentenced to state prisons, and 159 federal inmates, Miller’s report indicated. An extra 270 bunks have been added this year, leaving 699 in excess of total bunks. Southern Regional Jail in Beaver had 506 inmates, including 71 awaiting transfer to state prisons, and 27 federal inmates. “As outside programs have developed, such as day report and alternative sentencing, that has caused a downward trend,” Perry said. Sen. Bill Laird pointed out that day reporting centers are operating in all but four of the 55 counties.

Corrections Commissioner Jim Rubenstein cautioned the committee that his agency is functioning at capacity, unable to accept the state prisoners now in regional jails. If that trend holds sway, the backlog of state convicts in regional jails will swell to 3,500 by the end of 2012, he warned. Gov. Joe Manchin has commissioned a special task force to study prison overcrowding, and a fresh look at its findings its due today before Judiciary Subcommittee C. Miller pointed out that 4,742 arrests for first-time driving under the influence were taken to regional jails this year. “That’s something we can look at on sentencing structuring,” he said.

Miller’s agency also is facing 96 vacant positions, and emphasized that none is considered frozen. “You always have some empty positions,” he told the panel. Miller said the authority has begun to “aggressively” rev up its recruiting and retention program.

jakking Overcrowding, Personnel Issues, Regional Jail System, Regional Jails, Sentencing, West Virginia

Community sentences should be replaced by fines for thousands of offenders, the head of the Probation Service in England & Wales says, as reported by The Times.

Phil Wheatley told The Times that his service was at risk of being overwhelmed because the courts were sentencing too many offenders to community service.    It is understood that officials in the National Offender Management Service, headed by Mr Wheatley, may reduce supervision levels for offenders considered to be at low risk of harming the public or reoffending. This includes cutting the amount of time that offenders spend with probation officers. A record 147,000 people were given community sentences last year, while the number of fines fell sharply.

Mr Wheatley’s comments provoked an angry response from magistrates. John Thornhill, chairman of the Magistrates’ Association, said yesterday that it was not for the National Offender Management Service to say how people should be sentenced. “Mr Wheatley has to put everything in the context of a budget and financial constraints,” Mr Thornhill said. “We come from the angle of justice.”

Mr Wheatley was speaking to The Times as the latest official figures showed a record number of offenders starting Probation Service supervision last year. He called on the courts to be much more willing to fine offenders rather than place them on community services, which he said was costly in both manpower and financial terms. Mr Wheatley said: “It is true from the sentencing data that the courts are fining less and using community sentences more. It is obviously for the courts to decide how they deal with people, but I make the fairly obvious point: fines make money, criminals pay, and community sentences, which involve the Probation Service doing things with people, cost money.”

Mr Wheatley was careful not to be seen to be telling the courts directly to fine more offenders, but he made clear that he would like them to be used more frequently enabling him to focus probation resources on supervising prolific criminals and those likely to cause serious harm to the public. “It is important that the courts think carefully whether a community sentence is really the best option. Is it needed rather than a fine?” he said.

The Probation Service’s budget has been cut by more than 2 per cent to £886 million this year, but the latest figures show no sign that the numbers being put on supervision are falling. In the first three months of this year the number of offenders starting community sentences jumped 9 per cent to 35,900 compared with the same period last year. There was a 27 per cent rise in those considered low risk who were put on community orders. Mr Wheatley said: “It is important we do not spread our resources too thinly. It is a bit like taking antibiotics. It is better to do a good job with somebody, give them the full course in antibiotic terms rather than give everybody two pills each and hope it is sufficient to do the job” … [H]e said that putting an offender under supervision did not remove the risk to the public or mean that he or she would not commit further offences. “I do not overpromise what is possible,” he said. “We must be very careful in alleging that as a result of probation supervision, even intensive arrangements, we have removed risk. We have reduced risk.”

Mr Thornhill said that one reason for the fall in the number of fines handed out was because of the rise in out-of-court, on-the-spot fines for minor offences. He said that unpublished figures from the last quarter of last year showed an increase in the use of fines at magistrates’ courts. “It is wrong to say magistrates have stopped using fines to sentence,” he said. “There was an increase in the last quarter of last year.” But he said that in cases involving shoplifting or fraud, a community penalty rather than a fine was a better option. “What is the point of fining them when financial problems have probably been part of the problem? You are setting people up to fail.”

jakking Community Corrections, England & Wales, Europe, INTERNATIONAL, Sentencing

12 and in Prison – as reported in the New York Times.

The Supreme Court sent an important message when it ruled in Roper v. Simmons in 2005 that children under the age of 18 when their crimes were committed were not eligible for the death penalty. Justice Anthony Kennedy drew on compassion, common sense and the science of the youthful brain when he wrote that it was morally wrong to equate the offenses of emotionally undeveloped adolescents with the offenses of fully formed adults.

The states have followed this logic in death penalty cases. But they have continued to mete out barbaric treatment — including life sentences — to children whose cases should rightly be handled through the juvenile courts.

Congress can help to correct these practices by amending the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974, which is up for Congressional reauthorization this year. To get a share of delinquency prevention money, the law requires the states and localities to meet minimum federal protections for youths in the justice system. These protections are intended to keep as many youths as possible out of adult jails and prisons, and to segregate those that are sent to those places from the adult criminal population.

The case for tougher legislative action is laid out in an alarming new study of children 13 and under in the adult criminal justice system, the lead author of which is the juvenile justice scholar, Michele Deitch, of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. According to the study, every state allows juveniles to be tried as adults, and more than 20 states permit preadolescent children as young as 7 to be tried in adult courts.

This is terrible public policy. Children who are convicted and sentenced as adults are much more likely to become violent offenders — and to return to an adult jail later on — than children tried in the juvenile justice system.

Despite these well-known risks, policy makers across the country do not have reliable data on just how many children are being shunted into the adult system by state statutes or prosecutors, who have the discretion to file cases in the adult courts.

But there is reasonably reliable data showing juvenile court judges send about 80 children ages 13 and under into the adult courts each year. These statistics explode the myth that those children have committed especially heinous acts.

The data suggest, for example, that children 13 and under who commit crimes like burglary and theft are just as likely to be sent to adult courts as children who commit serious acts of violence against people. As has been shown in previous studies, minority defendants are more likely to get adult treatment than their white counterparts who commit comparable offenses.

The study’s authors rightly call on lawmakers to enact laws that discourage harsh sentencing for preadolescent children and that enable them to be transferred back into the juvenile system. Beyond that, Congress should amend the juvenile justice act to require the states to simply end these inhumane practices to be eligible for federal juvenile justice funds.

The complete From Time Out To Hard Time study is available online.

janchavarie Juvenile Justice, Sentencing

Mary Thompson, an inmate at the California Institution for Women here, was convicted of two felonies for a robbery spree in which she threatened victims with a knife. Her third felony under California’s three-strikes law was the theft of three tracksuits to pay for her crack cocaine habit in 1982. Reported in the NY Times.

Like one out of five prisoners in California, and nearly 10 percent of all inmates nationally in 2008, Ms. Thompson is serving a life sentence. She will be eligible for parole by 2020.

More prisoners today are serving life terms than ever before — 140,610 out of 2.3 million incarcerated nationally — under tough mandatory minimum-sentencing laws and the declining use of parole for eligible convicts, according to a report released Wednesday by The Sentencing Project, a corrections research and reform advocacy group. The report tracks the increase in life sentences from 1984, when the number of inmates serving life terms was 34,000.

Two-thirds of prisoners serving life sentences are Latino or black, the report found. In New York State, for example, 16.3 percent of prisoners serving life terms are white.

Although most people serving life terms were convicted of violent crimes, sentencing experts say there are many exceptions, like Norman Williams, 46, who served 13 years of a life sentence for stealing a floor jack out of a tow truck, a crime that was his third strike. He was released from Folsom State Prison in California in April after appealing his conviction on the grounds of insufficient counsel.

The rising number of inmates serving life terms is straining corrections budgets at a time when financially strapped states are struggling to cut costs. California’s prison system, the nation’s largest with 170,000 inmates, also had the highest number of prisoners with life sentences, 34,164, or triple the number in 1992, the report found.

In addition to California, at least one in six prisoners are serving life terms in Alabama, Massachusetts, Nevada and New York, according to the report.

The California prison system is currently in federal receivership for overcrowding and failing to provide adequate medical care to prisoners, many of whom are elderly and serving life terms.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this week reiterated his proposal to reduce the inmate population through a combination of early releases for nonviolent offenders, home monitoring for some parole violators and more lenient sentencing for some felonies. But there are no credible plans to increase the rate at which prisoners serving life sentences are granted parole.

“When California courts sentence somebody to life with parole, it turns out that’s not possible after all,” said Joan Petersilia, a Stanford law professor and an expert on parole policy. “Board of parole hearings almost never grant releases, and that’s the reason that California’s lifer population has grown out of proportion to other states.”

More details on the NY Times.

janchavarie Sentencing

The United States Sentencing Commission should work to simplify federal guidelines and keep them advisory, rather than return to a mandatory system, a group of federal judges said. The judges spoke today at the U.S. Court of International Trade in New York, where the commission is holding the third in a series of public hearings on policy issues. Complete story on Bloomberg.com.

The seven-member commission should work with Congress to create a “politically viable” plan to simplify the sentencing rules, which are “ridiculed” in other countries, said Jon Newman, who sits on the appeals court in New York. Several other judges said they agreed with him.

The guidelines grew out of a congressional effort to eliminate sentencing disparities and standardize the punishment for similar crimes committed by similar offenders. Congress set up the U.S. Sentencing Commission in 1984 and gave it the power to issue binding guidelines on federal judges.

Under the guidelines, a convicted defendant’s crime served as a starting point, putting him in a range of permissible sentences. Judges then increased the prison term by a specified period if, for example, a gun was fired during the crime. Other factors, such as acceptance of responsibility for the offense, led to a sentence reduction.

Advisory System
In 2005, the Supreme Court decision U.S. v. Booker converted the sentencing guidelines from a mandatory system to an advisory one.

Denny Chin, a district judge in Manhattan, praised the Supreme Court for its Booker decision.

“Most if not all of my colleagues in the Southern District of New York would agree the system is better post-Booker,” Chin testified today. “We have more flexibility to do what we are supposed to do — to judge — and we are not limited to merely applying mechanical rules and doing mathematical calculations.”

Last month, Chin sentenced Bernard Madoff to 150 years in prison for a decades-long fraud that cheated investors of billions of dollars.

Richard Arcara, a district judge in Buffalo, New York, also praised the Booker decision for returning sentencing discretion to judges.

“Booker has improved the quality of the sentencing jurisprudence,” Arcara testified.

Time-Consuming
However, the new system is even more time-consuming for judges, Arcara said. In addition to performing guideline calculations, resolving objections and addressing motions for a reduced sentence, they must also now address motions for a sentence outside the advisory range, elaborately justifying each sentence, he said.

Arcara, who said he had 230 criminal cases on his docket last week, called for simpler guidelines.

Newman, who has served on the New York appeals court for 30 years, mocked what he called the “basic premise” of the sentencing guidelines, which is that “for every discrete increment of criminal misconduct there must be a discrete increment of punishment.” He said the system was designed to “satisfy the statisticians.”

The judge then asked the commission to rewrite the guidelines “with a view to making it truly a simplified system that provides guidance for imposing punishments, instead of requiring precise calculations and precise determinations of numerous factors that no other sentencing system in the world requires a sentencing judge to make.”

Personal Views
The lone dissenter was Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who serves on the appeals court in Washington. Before becoming a judge, Kavanaugh worked with former independent prosecutor Kenneth Starr on the investigation of former president Bill Clinton and later worked in the White House under George W. Bush.

Acknowledging that Booker is “here to stay,” Kavanaugh argued that the Supreme Court’s Booker decision has increased disparities and that it invites judges to improperly apply personal and policy views when imposing a sentence.

William Carr, a vice chair of the Sentencing Commission, singled Kavanaugh out.

“Judge Kavanaugh, you are unusual in longing for a return to the mandatory system,” Carr said. “Most district judges are happy with the advisory system.”

Kavanaugh proposed a remedy that would be a hybrid of the mandatory and advisory systems. Newman said that he could live with that, as long as the proposed Congressional reform reduced the infinite calculations in the current system.

janchavarie Federal Systems, Sentencing

A study advocating an overhaul of West Virginia’s corrections system can’t be allowed to sit on a shelf and gather dust just because it carries a price tag of nearly $256 million, said Homeland Security and Military Affairs Secretary Jim Spears.  From the Charleston Daily Mail.

Spears chaired the study sought by Gov. Joe Manchin as a way of curbing inmate overcrowding in the state’s 14 prisons and 10 regional jails. The study, submitted to Manchin last week, carries 14 recommendations for revamping the system.

The recommendations include modifying sentencing laws to reduce terms for nonviolent crimes, diverting inmates with drug and alcohol abuse problems to treatment programs, expanding community-based sentencing and treatment options, adding 1,820 new prison beds by building community-based units, expanding an existing prison and building a 1,200-bed medium-security prison.

“The commission fully recommended that no single aspect of it is the silver bullet, but it has to be done in its entirety for it to have the positive impact we believe it will have,” Spears said.

Manchin commissioned the study following a two-day summit in November on  overcrowding in the state’s prisons. The system is designed for 5,300 inmates, but another 1,200 are being held in regional jails awaiting transfer to a state facility.The corrections population grows by three inmates a day. The report said the state’s prison population is expected to hit 8,530 inmates by 2012. By 2017, the population is expected to hit 10,304 if the state doesn’t change sentencing, treatment, rehabilitation and housing policies, the commission’s report said.

An estimated 700 inmates could be kept out of the system if all branches of West Virginia’s government adopt the commission’s recommendations, said commission member Kent Carper.

“If the Legislature, the executive branch and the judicial branch actually takes the time to read it, it will be very hard to ignore,” said Carper, who also is president of the Kanawha County Commission.

Since 1991, the Legislature has voted 75 times to modify sentencing laws or create new ones. Lawmakers also increased the mandatory minimum sentences for several crimes. The report found that between 2001 and 2006 sentences grew by as much as 33 months. The sentence for murder grew from 53.6 months to 86.1 months. Burglary increased 20 months to 44.4 months.

Nearly two-thirds of West Virginia inmates were sentenced for nonviolent crimes.

It costs about $28,000 a year to feed and house an inmate. Diverting up to 500 inmates a year to community-corrections programs could save the state at least $14 million. Community corrections includes home confinement, electronic monitoring or intense supervision, rather than prison.

“To believe the Legislature will soften criminal penalties across the board is a pipe dream,” Carper said. “But people would support rehabilitation and using those savings to straighten them up.”

About 19 percent of the inmates suffer from mental health issues, yet the state has no programs to focus on mental health or substance abuse issues. Residential treatment centers are needed statewide, the report said.

Manchin has yet to say how he intends to address the report’s findings, but Senate Judiciary Chairman Jeff Kessler said the Legislature doesn’t have to wait for Manchin.

“The governor has a significant role to play,” the Marshall County Democrat said. “Now, it cries out for legislative action and legislative solutions. It’s going to cost some money.”

Because of what Kessler termed a “looming crisis” the Legislature must at least consider building the new 1,200-bed prison. Construction estimates range from $100 million to $200 million.

“Our options are set out pretty clearly in the report,” said Kessler, who served on the study commission. “Build several new prisons or address our penal laws.”

The governor’s study isn’t the only review of the state’s correction system. The state Supreme Court has launched its own review to determine how West Virginia is complying with a 2002 order on the transfer of inmates from regional jails to state prisons. State inmates held in regional jails do not receive training, rehabilitation and other services given to inmates being held in state prisons.

“If there isn’t some attention paid to this, the court system will step in and do the job of the other two branches,” Carper said.

And if that happens, the state will have to follow the Supreme Court’s order regardless of the cost, Spears said. The court ordered the state to build a new maximum-security penitentiary in 1986 after declaring conditions in the former penitentiary unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court’s review isn’t expected to be completed until next year.

jakking Economic Issues, Jail and Prison Construction, Overcrowding, Regional Jail System, Sentencing, West Virginia

A proposal by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to move “wobblers” – criminals convicted of crimes that could be classified as either a felony or a misdemeanor – to county jails could take another $100 million from local governments according to California State Association of Counties estimates.  From PublicCEO.com.

“Shifting responsibility for housing criminals to the counties is untenable and unworkable,” says Steve Whitmore, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.  “There is no room at the inn,” Whitmore says.   According to Whitmore’s estimates, a proposed bill would change the penal code to classify fraud, grand theft and some drug possession offenses as misdemeanors so that convicts could serve sentences locally would mean another 4,000 to 5,000 inmates for Los Angeles’ seven jails, which are already overcrowded to the point that a court has ordered population reductions.  “We would have to start releasing prisoners,” Whitmore says.

Los Angeles is not alone.  At the other end of the state, Siskiyou County Sheriff Captain Jim Betts is trying to make the most of his 107 bed-capacity by expanding home incarceration and work programs.  “We are trying to think ahead, but there is no room to expand,” Betts says …

The California State Sheriffs’ Association estimates 139,000 sentenced prisoners were released from county jails prior to serving their complete sentenced time in 2005.  The state also faces overcrowding and possible forced releases at its 33 prisons. The state houses 171,000 inmates at an average cost of $49,000 per inmate per year, according to a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation 2008 report.  The governor’s proposal could move an estimated 23,000 future prisoners from state prisons to local custody in 116 local facilities and could save the state $99.9 million in 2010 and millions more in future years …

“The state should not balance the budget on the back of LA County,” Whitmore says.  The Sheriffs’ Association is not the only one opposing the proposal.   The ACLU, Chief Probation Officers of California and Los Angeles Police Protective League have all spoken out against the plan.

jakking CA Siskiyou County, Early Release, Economic Issues, Overcrowding, Sentencing

Judge William Sessions, who was nominated Monday to be chairman of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, hopes to continue reforming federal sentencing guidelines to address prison overcrowding.  From the Rutland Herald:

“We’re at a particular point in history where prisons are incredibly overcrowded,” Sessions said. “We’re also at a particular point in time in which there’s a potential for real change.”

Sessions is the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for Vermont and has been a federal judge in Vermont since 1995. He was nominated by President Barack Obama, but will still need to be confirmed by the Senate, a process that he said can be highly political.   Sessions, who made national headlines in 2002 when he declared the death penalty unconstitutional, is currently a vice chairman of the commission, which sets sentencing policy for the United States and advises Congress and the executive branch on crime policy.

Options other than standard incarceration should be used more to address prison overcrowding, Sessions said. That includes drug treatment courts, placement in home confinement or community confinement, and split sentences in which part of a sentence is served in prison and part is served in the community.

Sessions also hopes to make rehabilitation a higher priority in federal sentences.   “For the last 15 years there’s been little interest in rehabilitation,” Sessions said.   Instead, punishment has been the priority.   “A person commits a crime, and they get X,” he said. “We’re going back to, ‘How do we get these people rehabilitated so when they get out of prison, they’re not a danger?’”

There is a great deal more background in the full article.

jakking Drug Treatment & Diversion, Overcrowding, Re-Entry, Sentencing

A bill introduced in the Minnesota Senate this week would cut prison sentences across the board and lower penalties for specific crimes. The bill’s author said she’s proposing the changes to help balance the state’s budget. But some public safety advocates say the changes go too far and the savings could be found elsewhere.  As reported by Minnesota Public Radio.

The bill proposed by DFL Senator Linda Higgins would cut $78 million from the Department of Public Safety and the Department of Corrections. The bulk of the cuts, $66 million, would come from the Corrections Department.  Because most of the department’s expenses come from housing inmates, Higgins said the only way to save money is by reducing the number of inmates walking into prisons and the amount of time they stay there. Her plan accomplishes that by eliminating mandatory minimum sentences for some offenses.  “In the last 10 or 15 years, legislators have imposed all of these mandatory minimums and taken away any discretion that judges have on certain things,” Higgins said. “And all of the research that’s been going around the country on prison systems have found that it has really been a driver in an explosion of costs in a prison system.”

Higgins wants to repeal required minimum sentences for felony drunk drivers, for some drug offenses and for predatory offenders who fail to register with authorities. She said judges should decide the length of sentences … The bill also reduces the length of time all inmates would serve in prison. Currently, offenders have to serve at least two-thirds of their sentence in prison or jail. The bill would shorten it to 60 percent … Higgins said lawmakers have to make changes in light of a tough budget deficit …

Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said eliminating mandatory minimum sentences and prison time is a mistake. Even though the bill would apply only to inmates who are sentenced after July 1, Freeman said nearly every inmate already in prison would apply for the reduction. He said courts would force the state to make the change retroactive, meaning further reductions for inmates.  “It doesn’t save any money,” he said. “By the time we’re done in the next two or three years litigating everyone’s sentence again, it’s going to be very expensive and there’s no money in this bill for it.”

jakking Economic Issues, Minnesota, Sentencing

There are not many winners in the new New York State budget, but the fiscal plan will make it easier for some prison inmates to be released early for medical, merit and other factors.  This report from the Buffalo News.

The relaxed standards, contained deep within the 2009 state budget, go beyond the much-publicized reforms to the Rockefeller-era drug laws that Gov. David A. Paterson and lawmakers pushed to include in the fiscal plan over the objections of many district attorneys.  The provisions will, according to supporters, encourage more humane treatment of a select number of inmates while, in some cases, making prisons safer. The efforts will also save money and, eventually, help in the years ahead to close expensive facilities that are seeing fewer inmates.

But critics insist that some of  the new standards are open to wide interpretation that will result in the release of still-dangerous inmates.  “It’s a wholesale change in the policies that have led to the most significant drop in the violent crime rate of any state in the nation,” said State Sen. Michael F. Nozzolio, a Finger Lakes Republican who until January had served for years as chairman of the Senate’s Crime Victims, Crime and Correction Committee. “These issues, taken together, will ensure more violent criminals are out on the streets, and that’s going to create tremendous pressur e for law enforcement. It will make our cities less safe,” Nozzolio said.

The major sentencing change involves the Rockefeller drug laws, eliminating mandatory minimum sentences for some drug violations and providing judges with more discretion to steer some individuals to treatment instead of prison … The new budget adopted last week [also] permits some inmates to be released on medical parole if approved by a physician and the state Parole Board, a plan originally proposed by Paterson in December. It is the first major change to medical parole laws since 1992, when terminally ill inmates were first allowed to leave prison early. It also recognizes the prison system’s increasingly aging population; the number of inmates older than 55 has risen from 1,500 to more than 3,600 in the last decade … The Paterson administration estimates that 45 individuals now in prison could be released this year. They estimate $2 million in savings this year from the early releases …

The new budget also includes an expansion of the merit-time program that permits early release of eligible inmates, including violent felons. It allows the release of such inmates six months before the completion of their minimum sentence. Not eligible are those convicted of first-degree murder or sex crimes.   The new merit-time effort takes into consideration whether an inmate participated in no less than two years of college programming while in prison and other efforts to reduce recidivism rates, such as enrollment in a state-approved apprenticeship program. Credit can also be given for working as an inmate hospice aide. The inmate’s prison behavior, and even whether they filed a “frivolous” civil lawsuit while in prison, are also considered as factors for the credit.

There is a great deal more detail and background in the Buffalo News article.

jakking Drug Treatment & Diversion, Early Release, Economic Issues, New York, Sentencing

A new state report projects Oregon’s prison population will exceed 15,000 by 2013 because of Measure 57, which requires mandatory minimum prison sentences for drug and property crimes under certain circumstances. But the Oregon Department of Corrections may have a hard time housing new inmates in the upcoming 2009-11 biennium if it has to enact a worst-case budget scenario that would mean closing 10 prisons.  Reported by the East Oregonian.

It says Oregon’s prison system has about 13,765 inmates, and without the effects of Measure 57, the state’s prison population would grow at an annual rate of 2-3 percent through mid-2010, with growth slowing to less than 1 percent in the outer years of the forecast. With the effects of Measure 57, however, growth will exceed 5 percent through mid-2011, while gradually returning to baseline growth in the later years of the forecast.

Voters passed Measure 57 in November, and it went into effect Jan. 1. A state committee projected Measure 57 would cost $152 million during the 2009-11 budget period. But Oregon’s severe recession will force cutbacks in state programs and services.  Recently, the Oregon Legislative Fiscal Office asked state departments to prepare 30 percent reduction plans for the biennium beginning July 1. Departments submitted those plans Friday. For corrections, that meant a proposal that cut $445 million from its $1.5 billion budget.

A 30% reduction in DOC funding would require the Department to

close four minimum-security facilities: Columbia River Correctional Institution in Portland, South Fork Forest Camp near Tillamook and Santiam Correctional Institution and Mill Creek Correctional Facility, both in Salem. All are minimum security facilities and collectively hold about 1,400 inmates, many on the verge of release … Powder River Correctional Facility in Baker City, Shutter Creek Correctional Institution in North Bend, the new Warner Creek Correctional Facility in Lakeview, the Oregon State Penitentiary Minimum Facility and the 50-year-old medium-security Oregon State Correctional Institution in Salem. Those minimum security facilities can house 1,142 inmates, including 30 women, and Oregon State Correctional Institution is an 880-bed transitional release facility …  and Deer Ridge Correctional Institution in Madras. Deer Ridge is Oregon’s newest prison, having first accepted inmates in 2007. The prison has beds for 644 minimum-security inmates and 1,223 medium-security inmates. Closing it would save $42 million …

And what would happen to the inmates in these prisons?  “That’s a really good question and I don’t have an answer for it yet,” Jeanine Hohn, corrections department communications manager, said.

jakking Economic Issues, Oregon, Overcrowding, Sentencing