Pubdate: Wed, 16 Apr 2003
Source: Times, The (LA)
Copyright: 2003 The Times
Contact:  http://www.shreveporttimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1019
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm (Incarceration)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?199 (Mandatory Minimum Sentencing)

ACT NOW ON PRISON REFORM

Alternatives move nonviolent offenders, juveniles out of jail.

On a proportional basis, Louisiana still is locking up more people than any 
other state, a report last week from USA Today shows.

Louisiana is historically opposed to prison reform. A "hard-line" on 
justice is required. But there is evidence the state is rethinking its 
approach to sentencing.

For example, on March 9, 2002, the respected television show 60 Minutes 
aired a positive program on the Louisiana criminal justice system. In 
Louisiana, 60 Minutes said, the expensive policy of locking up petty 
criminals for long terms - even life - for repeated nonviolent petty acts 
was being reversed under laws that remove mandatory drug sentences for 
certain nonviolent crimes and cut in half many drug sentences.

Under the old policy, Louisiana's prison population had tripled along with 
costs. Prisons were overcrowded and courts clogged. Addicts needing help 
because of addiction became neglected inmates and inevitable repeat offenders.

Ideally under new laws, Louisiana judges would be sentencing more low-level 
and property offenders to home arrest or community programs. But, as the 
most recent figures demonstrate, new statutes have not slowed Louisiana's 
incarceration rate nor unclogged court dockets.

These reforms were needed. But incarceration will not significantly 
decrease until some of Louisiana's inmates are moved out of prison and into 
alternative programs that gradually ease them back into society.

Alternative programs will not compromise public safety since half the 
Department of Corrections adult population is made up of those nonviolent 
drug and property offenders - people sentenced more harshly because of 
mandatory minimums still in place.

But the most urgent argument going for prison reform is most kids locked up 
in Louisiana (80 percent) have not committed a violent crime. We say 
transfer juveniles out of the state prisons where revenge, not 
rehabilitation is the mission. For delinquents, prison only provides an 
education on crime.

The notorious Tallulah prison is this week - and again - under judicial 
scrutiny that may force the state to turn the facility over to Federal 
authorities. The prison for youthful offenders is teeming with allegations 
of rape and guard abuse.The Feds should step in.

State Rep. Mitch Landrieu, a New Orleans Democrat, heads a special 
committee on juvenile justice that would transfer delinquents out of the 
Louisiana prison system. It's a step other states are taking.

Advocates of prison reform are often accused of being "soft on crime" - a 
deadly political sin in Louisiana. But any family dealing with a child drug 
problem knows justice should be tempered with mercy for juvenile, 
nonviolent offenders if the real war on crime is to be won before the state 
becomes a gulag.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager