Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, September 19, 1994 TAG: 9411020005
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: STEVE AGEE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The Clinton plan focuses on government funding of ``prevention'' programs, some of which are valid, but many others questionable on the merits or as unfunded federal mandates. In sharp contrast to the Clinton approach is the directness of the Allen proposal: violent, repeat offenders go to jail and stay there.
Policy wonks debate whether strict sentencing and incarceration of violent recidivists reduce crime. Common sense and statistics argue strongly that they do. Published data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the U.S. Department of Justice indicates up to 70 percent of violent crime is done by about 6 percent of the criminal population. And they make a habit of it: Criminals with three or more prior convictions have a 76 percent recidivism rate. In other words, the chance is better than three out of four that if the repeat offender isn't incarcerated, he'll commit more crimes.
It is these repeat violent offenders who spawn personal tragedy for thousands of victims and their families. There is no monetary basis to judge the cost of a dead, maimed or emotionally crippled parent, spouse or child.
The premise of the Allen plan is to stop this immeasurable loss, as well as the billions of dollars in medical costs, lost income and the destroyed possessions of crime victims, by incarcerating repeat and violent offenders, with no parole, to serve essentially day for day the sentence given by the court.
Since 1987, through the abolition of parole and mandatory sentencing guidelines, the federal criminal-justice system has functioned in much this way. Consider the contrast between two hypothetical criminal defendants, each sentenced to 10 years for committing similar felonies, one on a federal property like the Blue Ridge Parkway and the other a few hundred yards away, outside federal jurisdiction, and tried in a Virginia state court.
In federal court, the parkway felon sentenced under mandatory federal guidelines cannot be paroled. He can earn no more than 54 days per year of ``good time'' for good behavior. In the best of circumstances, the federal felon would not physically leave prison for at least 81/2 years.
By contrast, the state convict could earn one day of good time (credited as if it were an actual day serving his sentence) for each day of actual incarceration. In addition, he could be eligible for parole, at the indiscretion of the Parole Board, after ``serving'' one-fourth of his sentence. Since good time counts as actual service for parole eligibility, this hypothetical state defendant could be paroled after actually staying in prison only 11/2 years of his 10-year sentence.
Why should the criminal fear, or the public respect, such a flawed system? Of course, neither does, and this is what the Allen plan seeks to change. It is a change that will work.
So why didn't someone think of this approach before? Why isn't this common sense the law?
The answer is that the pieces of the Allen plan have often been proposed in the General Assembly, but routinely squelched by the same Democratic majority that holds the fate of the Allen proposal in its collective hands.
Other than the Republican governors of the '70s, Virginia has been a one-party Democratic oligarchy all of this century, controlling all of Virginia state government: the governor's mansion, both houses of the General Assembly, and the judiciary through closed-door judicial elections in the Democratic caucus.
From this near-absolute power grew a ruling arrogance and an abuse of power that long stifled the reforms Gov. Allen hopes to bring to fruition. As former Speaker Philpott said in 1987:
``It has been said Republicans cannot get legislation through the legislature. That's true. If it's good legislation, we certainly are not going to let it go through with a Republican name on it.''
For criminal-justice reform legislation to become law, a bill had to survive the 20-member House Courts of Justice Committee, which until recently had only two Republican members, and a similar arrangement in the state Senate. It was a legislative journey Kipling's Light Brigade would well understand.
Starting in 1984, then-Del. Allen and I annually co-patroned legislation to plug the loophole in Virginia's capital murder law that authorized the death penalty where the victim was killed during a successful robbery or rape, but not if the robbery or rape was bungled - even though the victim was just as dead. While most readers will find it incredible that this could be so, the more incredible story is that our legislation was routinely squelched by Democrats in the legislative sport-killing of Republican bills.
Only in 1989, with Democrats bracing for the then perceived debacle of Lt. Gov. Douglas Wilder's run for governor, did this legislation finally pass, properly sponsored, of course, by a Democrat.
That same year, with Richmond having attained the distinction as America's per-capita murder capital in an epidemic of drug-related killings, Sen. Joe Benedetti and I patroned legislation to authorize the death penalty for murder during a drug-related crime. Again, the Courts of Justice Committees euthanized this legislation while the murder rate soared.
In 1990, only after Gov. Wilder endorsed the death penalty for drug-related murders, did this legislation finally pass, again, properly sponsored by a Democrat.
More recently, examine the fate of the now-acclaimed ``three strikes'' legislation, which passed with little opposition in the 1994 General Assembly session. What a different story, though, in 1993. Not only was this bill killed on a party-line vote in committee, but when I attempted to get a floor vote on ``three strikes'' by adding it to another bill then under debate, the reaction of the Democratic majority on the House floor was akin to a European soccer riot. Rather than act on this ``Republican'' measure by even allowing a vote, the Democratic leadership chose to kill the other bill before the House so no action of any kind could be taken.
With their total dominance in numbers, the Democratic majorities prior to 1994 could sport-kill Republican legislation as they wished, only occasionally faltering in the fear of an election year.
For example, in 1987, the General Assembly adopted a precursor of the ``three strikes'' concept with my bill banning parole for felons convicted of three separate drug crimes and bolstering the existing ban on three-time losers for murder, rape or robbery by including all federal and state convictions for those crimes. (Believe it or not, prior to then only Virginia rapes, murders and robberies counted.)
The now House speaker and majority leader brought the House to a standstill for more than an hour arguing to defeat this legislation. But the election-year fear of trying to explain a vote against such common sense was too powerful even for the blood bond of the Democratic caucus to break. The bill became law.
Yet until the electoral revolution of November 1993, this story was the rare exception. Which now brings Virginia to the special session of the General Assembly.
Legislation should have a critical review to ensure its worthiness to become law. Gov. Allen's parole and criminal-justice reform proposals are no exception. All General Assembly members, Republican and Democrat, should carefully ponder the governor's proposals and vote as conscience demands.
While the loyal opposition may well oppose, it now does so at its peril. Virginians will no longer allow the Democratic majority's proven addiction to political gamesmanship to thwart the long-overdue common sense of the Allen plan.
Steve Agee of Salem is a former Republican member of the Virginia House of Delegates.
by CNB