THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 28, 1994 TAG: 9408270030
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J6 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 94 lines
If there was one single reason George Allen won 58 percent of the vote in last November's gubernatorial election, it was his promise to restore law-abiding Virginians' faith in their criminal-justice system. Gov. Allen is poised to deliver on that promise. Unlike the social worker-laden crime bill that just passed Congress, the governor's plan to keep more violent criminals in prison longer looks like real crime prevention.
The final report of the Governor's Commission on Parole Abolition and Sentencing Reform proposes basic changes: abolishing parole and replacing it with truth in sentencing, increasing time served by violent offenders and finding more productive and economical settings for non-violent offenders. These measures aim at deterring and rehabilitating - and also incapacitating - repeat offenders.
The Allen administration buttresses its case with some illuminating statistics.
On any given day, Virginia's prisons hold some 20,000 inmates. Eighty percent have a prior conviction. About half are in for a violent crime. According to the commission, 68 percent of murders, 76 percent of aggravated assaults and 81 percent of robberies between 1985 and 1991 were the work of repeat offenders.
In fact, the administration calculates, more than 4,300 identifable crimes would not have occurred had the commission's reforms been in place eight years ago.
Critics often point to the cost of incarceration but rarely to the costs of crime - or the savings from crimes that don't occur. Every $1 spent incarcerating a criminal saves $2 in social costs, according to Princeton Prof. John DeIulio. And a longer prison term means not only no repeat offenses for that duration but can mean fewer repeat offenses after release. Of first-time violent offenders aged 18 to 21, those who served less than three years were almost four times more likely to return to prison for a new offense than those who served more than three years.
Virginia's crime rate has risen 28 percent in recent years, despite a drop in the number of Virginians in the ``crime-prone'' age group between 14 and 21. That population will surge beginning in 1996, and crime may well rise with it. The Legislative Black Caucus thinks slowing that rise depends primarily on preventive programs like Head Start: It wants a dollar spent on ``preventive'' programs for every dollar spent on prison reform.
But a credible criminal-justice system is crime pre-ven-tion.
Sentencing reform is an important part of the commission's package. Sentences im-posed by judge or jury bear often little relation to actual time served, making the public cynical about the system and criminals less fearful of it. The average sentence of offenders convicted of first-degree murder is about 40 years. The average time served: about 12 years. Of all inmates convicted of homicide, robbery, rape and aggravated assault between 1985 and 1991, 20 percent served one year. Fifty-six percent served less than three years.
Why the discrepancy? Because early release provisions - good time, mandatory release, discretionary parole - produce this average inmate: For every 365 days an inmate serves, he gets credit for another 300. The upshot: The average offender in Virginia serves only a third of the sentence imposed, and some serve only a sixth, before they are paroled.
So what should Virginia do? As Attorney General James Gilmore put it in a public hearing Thursday, the state can inject some ``integrity'' into the system.
Abolish what the commission report calls a ``hodgepodge'' of parole provisions. Establish truth in sentencing, so offenders, judges, juries and public know how sentence imposed will translate into time served. Increase actual time served by violent offenders, encouraging them to earn a reduction of up to 15 percent in time served by working, going to school or undergoing drug treatment. Provide the beds that no-parole and longer terms will entail by building prisons and encouraging alternative penalties and facilities for non-violent offenders.
Against the immeasurable anguish, and the estimated $2.7 billion saved from crimes that don't happen in the first 10 years of reform, is the cost of this reform in that period: an estimated $250 million for prison construction, as much as $400 million more for prison operation. Add that amount to the $620 million the governor figures the state must spend on construction with or without reform, and the capital cost alone is some $870 million.
Who pays, and how? The commission recommends finding private businesses and public-private partnerships to provide paying jobs for inmates, with their pay going to the state. Good idea, but small change. There have been hints a bond issue might be required.
Combined with the savings the governor is seeking elsewhere in the state budget, this plan looks like a worthwhile investment. Public safety must be government's top priority. Citizens should hope that the Democrat-controlled General Assembly will support real crime control, and resist any thought of joining crime-fighter Clinton in Joyce Brothers' office. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
GOVERNOR ALLEN
by CNB