Pubdate: Sat, 28 Feb 2015
Source: Honolulu Star-Advertiser (HI)
Copyright: 2015 Star Advertiser
Contact: 
http://www.staradvertiser.com/info/Star-Advertiser_Letter_to_the_Editor.html
Website: http://www.staradvertiser.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5154
Author: Jacob Sullum, Creators Syndicate.

IT WON'T BE EASY TO REFORM OVERLY HARSH PENAL SYSTEM

Last week the newly created Coalition for Public Safety, a 
bipartisan, transideological campaign to reform the criminal justice 
system, made a big splash by bringing together political adversaries 
such as Koch Industries and the Center for American Progress.

Notably absent from celebrations of this strange-bedfellows alliance: 
any mention of actual policy changes the coalition plans to pursue.

The lack of specifics was understandable but telling. While there 
seems to be broad agreement within the coalition about what should be 
done to "make our criminal justice system smarter, fairer and more 
cost effective," the current Congress may settle for little more than 
lip service to those goals.

The problem can be summed up in two words: Chuck Grassley.

The Iowa Republican, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, is 
not the only legislator who can be expected to resist real reform, 
but he embodies an outmoded tough-on-crime mentality that must be 
overcome by Americans who view their country's excellence at locking 
humans in cages as cause for shame rather than pride.

Grassley's idea of reform begins and probably ends with something 
called the CORRECTIONS Act. Although it has one of those silly names 
that is clumsily contrived to generate a meaningful acronym, it is 
not a bad bill. But it does not go nearly far enough to address the 
egregious injustices inflicted by our blindly punitive penal system.

The CORRECTIONS Act, introduced by Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and 
Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., would allow federal prisoners to shorten 
their sentences by participating in "recidivism reduction programs" 
(such as drug treatment or vocational training) and "productive 
activities" (such as prison jobs).

But the bill's limits on eligibility are strict and largely 
arbitrary, and the relief it offers is limited: 10 days off a 
"low-risk" prisoner's sentence for every 30 days he participates in a 
qualifying program or activity, with the reduction capped at 25 
percent of his sentence.

If the problem is excessively long prison sentences, why not shorten 
the terms prescribed by law instead of merely trimming some of them 
after the fact? Grassley, who last year supported an earlier version 
of the CORRECTIONS Act, is not persuaded by that logic, mainly 
because he does not think prison sentences are too long.

Two weeks ago, Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Richard Durbin, D-Ill., 
reintroduced the Smarter Sentencing Act, which goes further than the 
CORRECTIONS Act but not as far as the Justice Safety Valve Act, which 
Sens. Rand Paul, RKy., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., reintroduced on Feb. 4.

While Paul and Leahy's bill would effectively abolish mandatory 
minimum sentences by allowing judges to deviate from them in the 
interest of justice, Lee and Durbin's bill would reduce mandatory 
minimums for various drug offenses, retroactively apply the shorter 
crack sentences that Congress approved in 2010, and widen the "safety 
valve" that allows certain low-level nonviolent offenders to escape 
mandatory minimums.

That approach was moderate enough to win support from the Senate 
Judiciary Committee last year, when it was chaired by Leahy. But 
Grassley, the new chairman, opposed the bill then, and on the day it 
was reintroduced, he rose on the Senate floor to condemn it as 
"lenient" and "dangerous."

In his speech, Grassley equated the requirements for receiving 
mandatory minimums with violence, which is more than a little 
puzzling. If you are convicted of growing 100 marijuana plants or 
selling 28 grams of crack, for example, you are subject to a 
mandatory minimum sentence of five years - 10 if you happen to own a 
gun. If you plead guilty to mailing more than 10 grams of LSD 
(counting the weight of the blotter paper) and you have two minor 
LSD-related priors, you will be sent to federal prison for life. No 
violence is required.

If Grassley cannot see that injustices like these cry out for a 
remedy, I'm not sure how he can be persuaded. The Coalition for 
Public Safety has its work cut out for it.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom