Pubdate: Wed, 06 Jun 2001
Source: Virginian-Pilot (VA)
Copyright: 2001, The Virginian-Pilot
Contact:  http://www.pilotonline.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/483
Copyright: 2000, Landmark Communications Inc.
Author: Bill Sizemore
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/racial.htm (Racial Issues)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm (Prison Issues)

PARTY AND RACIAL LINES DIVIDE LAWMAKERS ON PRISON REFORM

A wide gulf divides Hampton Roads lawmakers over how well Virginia's 
punitive approach to crime and imprisonment is working.

The gap tends to follow partisan and racial lines.

Lawmakers agree that promoting public safety is a paramount concern; the 
disagreement is over how to do it. Those who think the state's get-tough 
policy has worked well tend to be white and Republican. Those who believe 
that approach has been wasteful, possibly counterproductive, and would 
rather rely more on crime-prevention measures and rehabilitation are more 
likely to be black and Democratic.

View results There appears to be little common ground between the two 
camps. In some cases, there isn't even a common understanding of current 
reality from which to begin a discussion. For example, the existence of 
racial disparity in drug-law enforcement is taken as a given by black 
lawmakers but widely denied by their white colleagues.

After chronicling years of dramatic increases in incarceration and prison 
construction, The Virginian-Pilot provided a synopsis of its findings to 
area lawmakers and Virginia's statewide elected leaders and asked for their 
reactions.

Many of their reactions were similar, if not identical. The Republican 
legislative delegation issued a joint response. The three statewide 
leaders, all Republicans, made many of the same points. All said the 
billions of dollars Virginia has put into its mushrooming prison system has 
been money well spent.

"Providing the funding to make Virginians safer was our duty -- and we made 
the hard decisions to make sure Virginians would be less likely to be 
victims of crime," the Republican lawmakers said.

"One cannot put a price on the peace of mind and safety of its citizens," 
said Gov. Jim Gilmore.

Even with the rising prison budget, "other pressing state needs are being 
well funded and not shortchanged," Lt. Gov. John H. Hager said.

"To do something right it costs money; and by any measurable standard the 
Virginia Department of Corrections is one of the best managed agencies in 
state government," said David Botkins, a spokesman for Attorney General 
Mark Earley.

Some Democrats pointed out that in 1995, four years before they lost 
control of the General Assembly, they successfully resisted the efforts of 
Gilmore's Republican predecessor, George Allen, to borrow $300 million for 
additional prison construction.

"Our caution has been shown to be justified," said Del. Thomas W. Moss Jr., 
D-Norfolk, noting that even without the additional prisons, the state now 
has thousands of surplus cells that it is renting out to other states.

"At a minimum of $50,000 per bed, this means we have spent at least $160 
million on prison beds before they were necessary," Moss said. "These 
dollars could have been used to meet pressing current capital needs in 
transportation and school construction."

Del. Kenneth R. Melvin, D-Portsmouth, called the overbuilding "a 
miscalculation of monumental proportions."

Supporters, critics speak out Republicans were uniformly supportive of 
Allen's sweeping "truth in sentencing" initiative, enacted by large 
bipartisan majorities in 1994, which abolished parole and dramatically 
lengthened many criminal sentences.

"When we adopted the 1994 reforms, we knew that repeat offenders committed 
three out of four crimes," the Republican legislators said. "These violent 
felons served on average only one-third of their sentences. Instead of 
worrying about having too many criminals in our prisons, we decided to 
start worrying about having too many criminals on our streets."

Some Democrats who supported the Allen initiative said it is too early to 
tell what its ultimate results will be. They noted that crime has dropped 
in Virginia, but pointed out that it has also dropped in states that didn't 
take such measures. They suggested that other factors such as the booming 
economy could be at work.

Some said the state needs to examine the implications of keeping people 
imprisoned into old age, as the cost of confining them rises and the 
chances of recidivism fall.

"We need to look further at the possibility of elderly, nonviolent inmates 
being released early, which would result in considerable taxpayer savings," 
said Del. William K. Barlow, D-Smithfield.

Local black lawmakers were among the few who opposed Allen's get-tough 
program in 1994. Some, at least, remain convinced that it was a mistake. 
"Now that we have no parole, there's no incentive to rehabilitate, there's 
no incentive to get an education," said Del. Jerrauld C. Jones, D-Norfolk. 
"What is the benefit, if you don't get any institutional credit for it?

"Those are the kind of short-sighted policies that we have adopted in the 
name of a war on drugs that we're clearly losing. It is taxing our 
governmental and societal resources, and in a way I think it is taxing our 
humanity -- our ability to be humane and to believe in the basic redemption 
of the human soul."

Gilmore has acknowledged that the war on drugs, the biggest factor behind 
Virginia's incarceration boom, isn't having the desired effect of reducing 
drug use or traffic. His answer is SABRE (Substance Abuse Reduction 
Effort), a multi-faceted, $41.5 million program that would dramatically 
increase many drug penalties while providing additional money for drug 
treatment. He, Hager and Earley all reiterated their support for the proposal.

SABRE relies heavily on mandatory minimums -- legislated penalties that 
allow judges little discretion in sentencing. Many such laws have been 
enacted as part of drug-war initiatives around the country and have been 
widely criticized by lawyers and judges because they are based largely on 
the quantity of drugs involved, rather than the severity of the crime or 
the culpability of the defendant.

Jones said such laws have produced some harsh and unjust results. He cited 
the case of Kemba Smith, a Hampton University student who received a 
25-year sentence in federal prison for her peripheral involvement in the 
activities of her drug-dealing boyfriend.

Racial question still the thorniest Perhaps the widest gap came in response 
to the issue of racial disparity in drug-law enforcement. As the Pilot's 
investigation showed, black Virginians are arrested, tried and imprisoned 
on drug charges in numbers vastly out of proportion to their drug use as 
measured in national surveys.

Gilmore, Hager, Earley and the Republican lawmakers, all of whom are white, 
addressed the issue by saying Virginia's sentencing guidelines were 
designed to eliminate all disparity, racial and otherwise.

That is true, said Del. William P. Robinson Jr., D-Norfolk, who is black. 
"The guidelines have helped at that stage of the process," Robinson said. 
"But at the front end, the statistics support the conclusion that minority 
populations are disproportionately targeted and prosecuted for these types 
of offenses."

All of the black lawmakers who responded agreed that the disparity exists.

Just getting the issue into the open is a start, said Jones.

"When you say that black people are disproportionately incarcerated and 
suggest that somehow there is white racism toward black people, white 
people get nervous," Jones said. "Disclosure of these disparities is the 
first major step. That sounds pretty basic, but that's where we are. We're 
at square one in trying to deal with this issue." 
- ---
MAP posted-by: Thunder