Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 25, 1994 TAG: 9408260008
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-13 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ray L. Garland
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The Subcommittee on Implementation of the Governor's Commission on Parole Abolition and Sentencing Reform recently presented its report. Its most important recommendations are:
Abolish parole effective Jan. 1, 1995.
Establish a permanent Sentencing Commission to promulgate sentencing guidelines, subject to legislative approval, and monitor trends in light of prison capacity, etc.
Retain judges' discretion to depart from guidelines, but require them to state in writing why they did so.
Retain jury sentencing. The subcommittee noted that juries hear only 5 percent of criminal cases.
Increase by 100 percent the average time served by violent, first offenders.
Increase by 300 percent to 700 percent the time served by violent offenders with a record. Crimes of violence are to include certain forms of burglary and the sale of hard drugs in quantities of 10 grams or more.
Replace the system of awarding "good time" with credits for good behavior that cannot exceed 15 percent of the sentence imposed.
Include a period of post-release supervision in the original sentence.
The subcommittee presented graphs comparing the average time now served for various serious crimes with the average time that would be served if its proposals are implemented. Taking one category only, robbery with a firearm, we find the present average sentence served in a basic case at 2.7 years; 3.8 years in a more serious case; and 4.1 years in the most serious. The study group would make that 5.4 years, 10.8 years and 21.6 years.
The report concluded: "Once these recommendations are enacted into law, judges and juries will be fully empowered to hand down sentences that represent actual time to be served ... and Virginia citizens will finally have a criminal justice system they can trust."
The tricky part comes in reconciling this brave talk with the projected cost of new prison space. The Allen administration says the state must spend about $850 million to construct new prison space in the next 10 years. But, it says, $600 million would be needed even without sentencing reform. So, we get all this toughness for relative peanuts: No more than $250 million for new construction and maybe an extra $50 million in annual operating costs in the year 2000.
If true, the explanation may be found in this language from the subcommittee's report: "Initial guidelines for each offense will be determined by taking the average time served for that offense during 1988-92 and increasing it by 15 percent. The baseline will be increased for certain violent and repeat offenders." Note that under the plan prisoners can earn a maximum credit of 15 percent off for good behavior.
No doubt sensitive to accusations of having proclaimed more toughness than delivered, the subcommittee added this footnote: "Only model prisoners will serve the same amount of time under the 'truth-in-sentencing' system as they would have served under the current system."
Frankly, I don't know what it means. But we might gain an inkling from data supplied by the state's Criminal Justice Research Center. It estimated that implementing Allen's plan would require only 3,000 additional prison beds by 2005. No big deal when you consider that state experts predict our prison population will more than double over the next 10 years, to something in the range of 50,000 to 55,000!
Common sense suggests the only way Allen can achieve his goal of incarcerating violent offenders for much longer periods without exploding the prison population even more is by reducing the time served for less serious offenses.
Laymen like me should be wary of offering suggestions. Reforms similar to those contemplated here have been tried in other states and in the federal system without producing spectacular results. If there's a criticism of the governor's commission, it would be that it's heavy on prosecuting attorneys and light on those charged with the actual management of prisoners. And by focusing on adult offenders, it may be ignoring its own stipulation that "most criminal careers begin around age 14 and peak by age 21." If so, a thorough revamping of juvenile justice might be the higher priority.
Still, it's hard to argue with the governor's basic premise: Once you have a person of established criminal habits, it costs society less to keep him in jail. Based only on actual convictions of persons subsequent to their release from prison in 1986-93, the commission says that had the Allen plan been in effect, 4,400 felonies, including 78 homicides and 151 rapes, would not have taken place. Adjusting for the gap between convictions obtained and crimes reported, it claims almost 200,000 felonies would have been averted.
Using simple math, and assuming only half of these assumptions to be true, it would cost taxpayers roughly $3,300 for each felony that didn't happen because the potential perpetrator wasn't free to do it.
But you look at the breeding grounds of crime and know it's a growth industry for the simple reason our society is turning out millions of people for whom it has no real place in the world of lawful work.
Ray L. Garland is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.
by CNB