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Sunday, December 11, 2011
Ind. Gov't. - "Push for prison downsizing focuses on low-level offenders"
That is the headline to this story today in the Kokomo Tribune, written by Scott Smith. From the Editor's Note:
This is the first in a three-day series examining the issue of minor felony convictions related to Indiana prison overcrowding, offender recidivism and sentencing fairness, along with legislative reform intended to ease the problems.Today's long, worth reading in full story begins:
After the Madison County judge looked at Bruce A. Wilson’s pre-sentence report, he made a decision, based in part, the judge said, on Wilson’s “lack of remorse.”So Wilson, busted with two ounces of marijuana tied up in three bags, $3,900 in cash and no prior felony convictions, was sentenced to three years in the Indiana Department of Correction for something which would have earned him a citation and a fine in Ohio.
Unfair? Not according to the Indiana Court of Appeals, which upheld the sentence.
Thus, Wilson became a statistic, one of the growing numbers of low-level felons in Indiana’s prison system, which grew by 41 percent between 2000 and 2009, a period which saw an almost perfectly corresponding drop in violent crime. Individuals like Wilson, convicted and sentenced on a Class D felony charge — the least severe of Indiana’s four felony grades — are the reason for that increase.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on December 11, 2011 04:58 PM
Posted to Indiana Government