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Monday, November 29, 2010

Ind. Gov't. - "Indiana budget leaders target prison population reductions"

Good story, just posted, by Lesley Stedman Weidenbener of the Louisville Courier Journal. A few quotes:

INDIANAPOLIS – State budget leaders appear ready to make big changes in Indiana’s criminal sentencing system to try to stymie or even reduce the growth in the prison population.

But members of the State Budget Committee said Monday the General Assembly will need more detailed data and lots of political courage to make changes that save money and better serve inmates and the public.

The data should come in December, when the Pew Center on the States and the Council of State Governments Justice Center finishes an intensive study of the state’s criminal justice system and makes recommendations for a sentencing overhaul.

The latter could be more difficult. State lawmakers have made a habit, in reacting to crimes, of passing laws that create new felonies or lengthen sentences. * * *

The discussion Monday was part of the Indiana Department of Correction’s presentation to the five-member, bipartisan budget panel that includes four legislative fiscal leaders and the governor’s budget director. * * *

State Budget Director Adam Horst * * * is serving on the state steering committee for the criminal justice study, which is being funded largely by grants and private sources. The study began last summer and recommendations are expected in the coming weeks.

The study includes a comprehensive look at the state’s criminal justice system, including evaluations of probation and parole supervision practices, community corrections and transition programs, the use of issue-specific courts including drug and family courts, and sentencing guidelines and requirements.

Indiana last evaluated its sentencing codes in 1976. Since then, Indiana’s adult prison population has grown from 7,500 to 29,000.

Rep. Eric Turner, R-Marion, said Monday that he’s as guilty as other lawmakers of voting for bills that lengthen sentences or create new crimes because of emotions rather than data.

But he said the General Assembly needs to reconsider those laws and the entire system.

“We need to figure out how we can come back and fix it in one big swoop,” Turner said. “It’s going to be very difficult.”

Fascinating stuff, right? Much of the information (but not Weidenbener's skillful putting it together) is from today's testimony before the State Budget Committee which, as the ILB first wrote on Nov. 17, 2010, sadly is NOT videocast. Think of what else you, the public, are missing from these hearings, which are going on daily for a month.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on November 29, 2010 07:34 PM
Posted to Indiana Government