Safety Net Catches those Freed by New Guidelines

Mark Geralds was a pretty good running back at Sikeston High School in the late '80s, and he dreamed of going to college on a football scholarship. But he got no offers, and things slipped away. He dropped out of school the second semester of his senior year.

He was a smart kid, but not above trouble. He had two juvenile convictions — first-degree tampering for stealing a motorcycle and forgery involving two checks for a total of $225. He was given probation for each offense.  Read more...

Mo. Supreme Court chief calls for sentencing fixes

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri's chief justice urged lawmakers Wednesday to make changes to the state's probation and parole systems to potentially save the state millions of dollars.

Chief Justice Richard Teitelman urged lawmakers in his annual State of the Judiciary address to pass measures to reduce the number of people in prison for probation and parole violations.

"I support your efforts to help make sentencing practices more cost-effective, helping Missouri to become ... both tough and smart on crime," Teitelman said, addressing a joint session of the state House and Senate.  Read more...

Panel recommends reforms to stem prison spending

Shortening sentences for some nonviolent offenses and creating a statewide network of accountability courts could help prevent Georgia taxpayers from spending more than $250 million to accommodate an expanding prison population, a state panel said Friday.

The Special Council on Criminal Justice Reform said changes are needed to control the unimpeded growth in state prison spending, which has doubled over the past two decades to $1.05 billion a year. The panel noted the growth is being fueled by drug and property offenders who account for about 60 percent of all prison admissions.

The council noted more than 3,200 offenders enter prison on a drug possession conviction each year and two-thirds of these inmates have been found to be low risks to offend again.  Read more...

Panel votes today on breaks in crack cases

WASHINGTON — One in every 20 federal prisoners could be eligible for early release under a potential sentencing change for inmates convicted of crack cocaine offenses that will be voted on Thursday.

Congress passed a law last year substantially lowering recommended sentences for people convicted of crack cocaine crimes, ranging from possession to trafficking. The idea was to fix a longstanding disparity in punishments for crack and powder cocaine crimes, but the new, lower recommended sentences for crack offenders didn’t automatically apply to people already in prison. Now it is up to the six-member U.S. Sentencing Commission to decide whether offenders locked up for crack offenses before the new law took effect should also benefit and get out earlier.  Read more...

New sentencing laws add costs for Hamilton County

Gov. John Kasich signed into law Wednesday criminal sentencing reforms that could release thousands of non-violent prisoners from the expensive prison system - and keep them out with drug rehabilitation and other programs.

But it may also bring a lot of headaches - and some resentment - to Hamilton County officials who believe the law means more mandated bureaucracy they will now have to pay for at a time when county government is struggling with a reduced budget and the possibility of additional layoffs among county workers.

"Today has been kind of a double whammy," Hamilton County Court Administrator Mike Walton said Wednesday.  Read more...

NC probation, prison changes backed at Legislature

Significant changes to North Carolina's sentencing and probation laws designed to keep better track of offenders and discourage recidivism while scaling back prison construction are heading to Gov. Beverly Perdue's desk.

The General Assembly gave its final approval Wednesday night to the so-called "Justice Reinvestment Act" developed with the help of outside researchers and interest groups. The House agreed to changes approved by the Senate earlier in the day.  Read more...

Political paralysis' in Calif. over prison reform

As California deeply cut spending for public schools, social services and health programs in recent years, state leaders also found themselves grappling with a court order to reduce the prison population by tens of thousands of inmates.

Some civil rights groups and criminal justice experts are now seizing on this perfect storm of chronic deficits and crowded prisons to push for wide-ranging changes to the state's sentencing laws that would transform California's handling of crime and punishment. The California chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union and other civil rights groups want the state to reduce drug possession and low-level, nonviolent property crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, and they want more community-based alternatives to incarceration. Read more...

Field Poll: California Voters Favor Re-Vamping "Three-Strikes Law"

Most California voters see a court order to reduce the state's prison population by 30,000 inmates as a serious problem, and nearly three out of four say it is time to revamp the state's "three-strikes" law, a Field Poll out today finds.

The poll comes on the heels of last month's ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court ordering California to address its prison overcrowding problem, and 79 percent of those surveyed said the matter is serious.  Read more...

Sentencing Project Releases Article on Mandatory Minimun Senetencing in the Federal System

In "The Impact of Mandatory Minimum Penalties in Federal Sentencing," appearing in the journal Judicature, Marc Mauer, Executive Director of the Sentencing project argues that mandatory sentencing policies have not improved public safety but have exacerbated existing racial disparities in the criminal justice system. The piece is taken from his testimony earlier this year to the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

To read the entire article click HERE

Sentencing Project Releases Report on Life Without Parole Sentences

In "Throwing Away the Key: The Expansion of Life Without Parole Sentences in the United States," appearing in the current issue of the Federal Sentencing Reporter, Ashley Nellis describes the growing use of life imprisonment in recent decades. She argues that the growing use of life without parole represents a lack of confidence that persons who commit serious crimes can mature out of their criminal behavior and that too often this results in unnecessarily lengthy incarceration.
To read the full article click HERE

Overcrowded prisons open Madison County judge's eyes

With state prisons stuffed beyond capacity and no signs of any slowdown in the volume of drug and theft cases that fill court dockets, Alabama's judges are being asked to rethink the sentences they issue.

The message came last week as all Alabama judges with power to sentence prisoners were invited by Alabama Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb to a three-day meeting in Montgomery. Cobb wants to find ways to reduce jail overcrowding and still enforce Alabama's laws in the face of significant state budget problems.  Read More...