Closing the Door on a Bad Idea -- Early Prison Release

by Diane Dimond

Well, that didn’t take long. 

And it certainly didn’t take an Einstein to figure out that our rush to balance budgets by granting early parole or release to thousands of convicts wasn’t such a great idea. It sure isn’t saving the money proponents predicted.

Several states embraced the theory that they could save millions of dollars every year by paring down their prison populations. They’ve quickly come to realize some things just can’t be measured by money. Like public safety – and the threat to the public’s safety.

This was starkly illustrated in Illinois recently when that state’s early release program was labeled, “A big mistake,” by none other than the governor, Patrick Quinn (right). He came to that conclusion after learning some violent convicts were sent home after spending only a few weeks in lockup. More than fifty of the early released were soon accused of new crimes, making more work for law enforcement and prosecutors handling the costly new cases.

So, where exactly was the savings in all that?

The program became a train wreck in Michigan, where 13,541 inmates were granted early release last year. One convict featured in a recent New York Times story is Scott Hankins, a two-time sex-crimes convict accused of molesting young girls he met at church. Some were disabled, and some were reported to be as young as seven. Last year, Hankins’s psychologists declared he met the criteria for a pedophilia diagnosis, but he was released anyway -– well before his 30-year-sentence was up. Prosecutors are now appealing the early releases of Hankins and other sex criminals. Those appeals are time-consuming and expensive for the state.

In Oregon, legislators passed an early-release law last summer. Thousands of convicts became eligible, including Demetrius Payton, 33, a registered sex offender and convicted burglar. His second chance came in October 2009, when he got out of prison early. By January, Payton had been re-arrested for unlawful sexual penetration and felony burglary. He’s now the focus of an anti-crime radio campaign launched by concerned citizens and former prosecutors.

The voice of former District Attorney Tara Lawrence (right) reveals her exasperation with Oregon’s program to let prisoners, like Payton, out early. “Law enforcement caught him,” she says in the ad, “the politicians' new law released him … Law enforcement caught him again. With more than 4,800 prisoners up for early release … this won’t be the last one.”

Oregon has now suspended its early release program.

California, under a federal court order to reduce its prison population, has a plan that’s really gotten bollixed up. Even before the statewide program went into effect, county jails began releasing hundreds of prisoners. At least one, a violent offender named Kevin Peterson, was out for less than 24 hours when he was arrested for attempted rape. Now lawmakers say they never intended for county prisoners to be included in the early release program. Who will pay to fix the problem? The cash-strapped citizens of California, of course.

Several other states are also reassessing just how to juggle early release and public safety. These programs are supposed to target only low-risk and non-violent prisoners. But obviously repeat offenders, violent offenders and sex predators are among those being set free. That’s just not fair to the rest of us.

Regular readers of my posts know I’ve long preached the need for both prison and drug-law reform. Because of our national experiment with tougher drug sentencing, there are too many low-level drug offenders clogging up our courtrooms and prisons. De-criminalizing marijuana would go a long way toward solving today’s massively expensive and over-crowded prison situation. Then we could concentrate on getting the addicted back into mainstream, taxpaying society again. We also need to better re-assimilate and support convicts after they’ve served their time so they don’t come back. Those diagnosed as truly criminally insane need specialized handling. And those who simply don’t respond to rehabilitation? We need to find ways for them to pay their own way in the system through prison work projects.

But for now we need to struggle through this ill-fated idea of opening prison doors and allowing convicts to get out early. There’s got to be a better, safer way to try to balance budgets.

I suggest state officials take a deep breath and study what’s happened in Colorado. Early on officials there figured they could save $19 million with the early release of some 2,600 prisoners. Sounded like a great idea. But they took the time to actually study individual cases and realized that, in good conscience and with public safety top of mind, they could only justify releasing a mere 264 convicts.

It’s okay to admit a mistake. In fact, oftentimes it’s the smartest thing we can do.

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Prisoners We Can't Pay For

by Diane Dimond

Everyone knows the economy is on the skids.

Wall Street certainly feels it. Corporations continue to cut jobs. Mom and Pop businesses struggle to stay open. And state and local governments are faced with the cold hard reality that there's just not enough money to go around.

Here's the really scary part. Among the budget-cutting targets are those used to run America's jails and penitentiaries. The situation leaves policy makers little choice but to let some people currently in prison out of prison before they've served their sentences.

This is not good news for the rest of us.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, for example, has found crime and justice problems in real life are much more difficult to solve than in the movies. With his state staring at a 42 billion dollar deficit, Schwarzenegger wants to grant early release to what he calls "petty criminals"—some 15,000 of them over the next year or so. Also, the Governator wants to eliminate parole for all offenders not convicted of violent or sex-related crimes. Schwarzenegger figures that would cut parole costs for about 70 thousand ex-cons. Nevermind that they would be back on the street with little or no supervision.

This type scenario is also under consideration or already in the works in several states.

Virginia's Governor wants to grant early release to about a thousand inmates. The Governor of New York wants 1,600 inmates to get out early and he's called for re-vamping strict 1960-era drug laws to ease the number of people who get locked up in the future. In Kentucky, even some murderers and other violent offenders are among the nearly 2,000 prisoners getting out early.

Naturally, any budget that reaches into the billions is going to be a prime target for possible spending cuts. And, here in America we spend about 60 billion dollars each year to manage the criminals we lock up.

But . . . whoa, Nellie! Can we stop and think about this for a minute?

Is it really a good idea to let loose criminals without a supportive parole or rehabilitation system? We're already a society struggling not to sink into a full-blown depression and the crime rate is already up in some important categories. Is it really the time to put thousands more unemployed people on the street, ex-cons who may very well return to crime if they—like countless others without criminal records—can't find work? And they will certainly further strain our already overloaded unemployment system?

Let's speak in general terms since not everyone in prison is a hardened career criminal. Generally speaking, these people are not like you and me. They often lack empathy and don't care about the pain their actions inflict on others. They don't see that working for a living is an honorable thing. Getting an education is often not of interest to them. They exist unable to control their own impulses, stealing what isn't theirs as if they are entitled. They take drugs, other citizens' possessions, children's innocence and sometimes they take people's lives.

Thomas Sneddon currently heads the National District Attorneys Association and was in the proprietorial trenches for decades as the D.A. in Santa Barbara, California. He cautions us to put it all in perspective.

The prisoner who gets out early today, he says, "may be a lot more dangerous to the public that their one charge indicates." As a defendant, he or she may have pleaded to the lesser of a half-dozen serious charges. Rewarding them with early release sends the wrong message.

Sneddon believes there are some prisoners who could be released safely into the populations, "But not the wholesale way that's being discussed now." And he makes a dire prediction about his home state Governor's early release plan.

"They'll re-offend. They won't take this as the gift it is. If you release 15,000 of them in California, I'll bet 10 thousand of them will be back in lock-up within two years." It's a terrible cycle of wasted lives and wasted taxpayers' money.

I was glad to read this quote from Michael Thompson, the director of the Council of State Government's Justice Center, a group which is working hard to figure out ways to curb prison population while keeping the public safe:

"There's an unprecedented level of interest in this kind of thinking," Thompson said. "It's a combination of fiscal pressure and a certain fatigue of doing the same thing as twenty years ago and getting the same return."

And that's the rub, isn't it? The number of incarcerated people in America keeps going up every year, costing us more and more money. And when they get out of prison many of them are still drains on society.

There's got to be a better way. I wish someone would figure it out—and soon.

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