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Sunday, July 17, 2011

Ind. Gov't. - "Study committees tackling two issues state must resolve"

From an editorial today in the Madison Courier:

Indiana General Assembly summer study committees are reviewing two issues the state needs to resolve.

The first is prison sentencing reform. A bill calling for major reforms that would save millions and reduce prison crowding by making greater use of alternative sentencing failed to gain much momentum last term. Many county prosecutors argued that reforms would equate to being soft on crime.

The second issue involves marijuana laws. State Sen. Karen Tallian, D- Portage, who introduced the bill creating the study committee, says most of the 2,000 responses she has received from constituents have been responsive to the idea of treating marijuana more like alcohol. The response from law enforcement has been mixed.

Before anyone jumps ahead, Tallian is not suggesting marijuana be legalized.

"One day, I watched three young kids plead cases on possession of small amounts," Tallian told the Gary Post-Tribune. "I thought, 'Why are we spending all of the time and money to do this?' Frankly, I put marijuana in the same category as alcohol."

The Criminal Law and Sentencing Policy Study Committee will look at the effects of marijuana on the criminal justice system, whether penalties should be adjusted for certain amounts, whether the state should have a medical marijuana program and whether it should be regulated like alcohol.

On prison reform, the General Assembly is trying a new approach - two different committees will discuss separate aspects of the change proposals. One committee will tackle theft and drug sentences. The other will take on sex-related sentences and may also work on drug proposals.

Indiana's prisons are near capacity, so the dual goal is to save money and have more sensible sentencing - making sure the worst criminals get the severe punishments they deserve, without clogging prisons up with low-level offenders. Even if legislators can be convinced of the need for changes, winning over the prosecutors will remain a formidable challenge.

Times have changed. The General Assembly needs to figure out how to stay tough on crime while acknowledging that the cost of legal proceedings and incarceration is breaking the budget.

Also today, Scott Smith of the Kokomo Tribune writes in a long story:
The number of people in the Indiana DOC system for a class-D felony — the lowest on Indiana’s four-tier scale of felonies — grew by 31 percent between 2005 and 2010, according to DOC statistics. That growth far outpaced the prison population as a whole, which grew by 6.8 percent in the same period.

The overcrowding problem was thrust into the spotlight late last year, when Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels backed a study that claimed that if nothing was done to change Indiana’s criminal justice system, the state would end up spending an additional $1.2 billion over the next seven years to build and operate new prisons.

“There’s no question [overcrowding is] driving the discussion,” said Larry Landis, director of the Indiana Public Defender’s Council. “It was the intersection of the recession and prison overcrowding, and realizing we cannot build our way out of it, because if we do, we’re going to start to impact education and other services.”

Wednesday, the Indiana Senate’s Criminal Code Evaluation Commission got down to the sticky details of proposing changes to state laws.

Specifically, the commission was set to look at Indiana’s lack of a misdemeanor theft charge, something that makes Indiana unique among the states.

Indiana has a misdemeanor conversion statute, which was supposed to serve that function, but former U.S. Attorney Deborah Daniels, who is heading a committee of attorneys charged with providing data for the commission, said prosecutors rarely use it.

Commission members appeared to agree that the main reason prosecutors appear to prefer charging individuals with theft — which is a class-D felony for anything under $100,000 — is because it is easier to obtain a conviction when a felony charge is hanging over someone’s head.

Whether it is fair to charge a first-time offender with a felony for stealing something of small value was where the disagreement started.

“I think we’ve learned that discretion [for prosecutors] leads to unfair sentences, and if we allow it to continue, we’ll see the same inconsistencies,” said State Sen. Greg Taylor, D-Indianapolis.

State Sen. Randy Head, R-Logansport, said prosecutors often agree to drop the felony theft charge down to a misdemeanor conversion charge if the defendant makes full restitution.

“If we take that away, it’s going to be harder to get restitution,” Head said.

After 90 minutes, it was clear the philosophical debate about providing charging discretion to prosecutors might be a much bigger factor in the commission’s deliberations than prison overcrowding.

Reading the whole story, the outlook for a resolution of sentencing issues this session does not yet look very promising.

Maureen Hayden of CNHI Indiana newspapers had an interesting related story in the Terre Haute Trib-Star on July 16th, headed "Legislator finds some support for taking the crime out of pot."

Posted by Marcia Oddi on July 17, 2011 02:06 PM
Posted to Indiana Government