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Thursday, April 14, 2011

Ind. Gov't. - "Sentencing proposal based on faulty numbers"

Updating this ILB entry from April 10th, another county prosecutor is weighing in on SB 561, Karen E. Richards, the Allen County prosecutor, whose op-ed piece is published today in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. Some quotes:

All 91 Indiana prosecuting attorneys oppose Senate Bill 561, the so-called “sentencing reform bill.” The reasons for our opposition are simple: the statistics used to support the notion that our prison population is skyrocketing are false, and the reductions in sentencing that the bill proposes are soft on crime, and therefore put our communities and citizens at risk.

In 2010, the Council of State Governments, backed by statistics from the Pew Center on the States, told Indiana citizens that the Department of Corrections was beyond capacity and that in 2008 and 2009, the prison population increased at a rate higher than any other state in the nation.

This “crisis” meant that Indiana needed immediately to find a way to reduce the prison population. Thus, SB 561 was born.

SB 561 attempts to reduce the prison population by reducing the sentences for felony drug cases, including drug dealing.

The statistics the Pew Center would have us believe indicate that Indiana’s inmate population was 28,322 on Dec. 31, 2008, and by Dec. 31, 2010, it was 29,818, an increase of 1,496, or 5.3 percent.

In reviewing its research, the center inappropriately used statistics from the Bureau of Justice, which lumped federal and state prisoners together. The real figures for Indiana’s inmate population show a population that remains virtually unchanged! * * *

This is a manufactured crisis based on faulty statistics.

The chief mechanism offered to solve this “crisis” is SB 561, which recommends that Indiana reduce penalties for selling drugs.

This bill not only lessens penalties, but redefines what constitutes dealing. Illegal drugs play a huge role in all criminal activity, and in Allen County, account for 80 percent to 90 percent of all homicides. Dealers who are prosecuted as such are not addicts who are dealing to support their habits, but gun-wielding, violent businessmen who sell poison to our citizens.

They should be punished as severely as possible. For addicts, Allen County has one of the best Drug Court programs in the country, in addition to probation, treatment, work release, etc., all of which are an alternative to prison.

There is much more in the article.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on April 14, 2011 10:13 AM
Posted to Indiana Government