Pubdate: Mon, 27 Nov 2006
Source: Merced Sun-Star (CA)
Copyright: 2006 Merced Sun-Star
Contact:  http://www.mercedsun-star.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2546

NEEDED: SENTENCING REFORM IN PRISONS

California Needs A Commission To Give A Thorough Look At Current Laws

The stars seem to be aligning for California to establish an 
independent, professional commission to put some order in the state's 
chaotic system of prison sentences.

First, it's been 30 years since California moved away from a 
discretionary system of judicial sentencing to its opposite: a rigid 
system of mandatory punishments prescribed by the Legislature. It's 
time to evaluate that shift and consider changes.

Today, judges in California have little flexibility. Sentences in 
some cases are unduly long. Too many of the state's sentencing 
guidelines are too complex and spread throughout the Penal Code, 
making them difficult to understand and apply. There is widespread 
recognition that the current system does nothing to encourage good 
inmate behavior in prison or provide incentives for inmates to 
prepare for life on the outside. Second, intense attention in recent 
years to single, high-profile violent crimes has brought about 
"drive-by" penalty escalations without attention to their effect on 
public safety, recidivism and cost. It's obvious now that ad hoc 
action to create more and longer sentences for all sorts of offenses 
isn't working.

Third, California prisons are overcrowded. Judge Roger K. Warren, a 
20-year veteran of Sacramento County trial courts, told the Little 
Hoover Commission in August, "The principal underlying reason why 
California prisons are overcrowded, cost a lot and result in high 
levels of recidivism at the expense of public safety, is that judges 
are sentencing too many nonviolent offenders to prison, and 
sentencing some of them to too long a term." Why? Such sentences are 
required by California's rigid sentencing laws. So prisons designed 
for 80,000 to 85,000 violent, repeat offenders serving long terms are 
overcrowded with 170,000 prisoners because lower-level, nonviolent 
offenders serving sentences of a year or less increasingly have been 
shifted to state prisons.

Fourth, prison costs are escalating, crowding out spending on other 
priorities, particularly higher education. The corrections budget 
took 4.3 percent of the state's general fund in 1985-1986. Since 
then, its share of the budget has doubled. Last year corrections 
consumed 8.8 percent of the general fund. Most important, Gov. Arnold 
Schwarzenegger is looking for areas of common ground with legislators 
to achieve real accomplishments. Key judges, correctional officials, 
criminal justice experts and legislators support change. Creating a 
sentencing commission is doable and, if the experience of other 
states is a guide, can be quite successful.

As Kara Dansky of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center told the 
Little Hoover Commission, sentencing commissions have been "the most 
successful modern governmental institution to prevent or cure the 
kind of correctional crisis that California now faces."

Between now and the opening of the legislative session in January, 
the governor and the Legislature should examine the experience of 
other states and craft a sentencing commission that fits California's 
unique needs.

It may be too much to hope for a new age of convergence around prison 
reform, but consensus is building around some worthwhile solutions. A 
sentencing commission is one.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman