17 States Revise Sentencing Policy While California Does…..Nada

The Sentencing Project released an intriguing new report yesterday that highlights the great new changes that 17 states have enacted in 2008 in the way of sentencing and corrections reforms.

It seems, said the report, that the nationwide budget crisis coupled with widespread prison overcrowding has led many states to address “critical challenges in the areas of sentencing, drug policy, parole revocation, racial justice, felony disenfranchisement, juvenile justice, and higher education in prison.”

Woo-hooo! For way too long the trend has been toward an overreliance on incarceration.

But now even many conservatives are coming to the conclusion that the lock-‘em-up only policy costs too much money for much too little in the way of return in terms of public safety.

I looked through the report with enthusiasm and saw some of the terrific things that various states were doing to invest in programs that reduce recidivism, prevent parole revocation, and still other programs that send low-level and first time offenders to diversion and treatment in order to keep them out of prison altogether.

For instance, Louisiana, Vermont, New Jersey and several other states have new drug diversion programs and/or in-prison incentive drug programs that allow for early release when certain offenders have successfully completed a drug rehab program.

Kentucky just established a big new commission to examine the state’s entire penal code to look for disparities in sentencing and to take on sentencing reform in general.

Utah just passed a bill to provide for more higher education in prison since studies show that a more educated parolee is likely to do better upon release.

The list goes on. And all these programs were instituted just in the last year.

Heartened, I scrolled through the report’s pages to see what California was doing ….and found that, when it comes to any kind of sentencing or parole policy reform, our fair state is doing…..

NOTHING.

Zero.

Not one reform.

Assuming I must somehow be missing the California listing, I called Mark Mauer, the head of the Sentencing Project and one of the nation’s best respected gurus on the topic of incarceration policy. Love Mauer. Super smart guy. I have his books.

“So,” I began, “is it really true that all these other states are making progress in sentencing reform and, California, which has the biggest prison system in the nation and the 7th largest prison system in the world is doing…..like….nothing?”

“Nothing,” said Mauer. “Your governor talks about reform at times. Then the next thing we hear, your state legislature is allocating billions for more prison cells.”

I sighed unhappily. “Well, we don’t have those billions any more,” I said. “We’re broke. I mean, this month our state government told us it will be giving IOUs to students in place of their college loan money. And we’re getting IOUs instead of our state tax refunds back…. It sorta sucks.”

“And you have the worst parole revocation policy in the nation,” Mauer added.

“Connie Rice says we’re stuck on stupid,” I said.

“Yeah, I’m sorry to say that’s about right.”

Then sensing he was depressing me further, Marc tried to say something positive.

“You have some really smart people in California….and they’ve done some excellent reports…..”

A pause.

“Yeah, but no one listens to them,” I said.

“Right. Unfortunately, no one listens to them.

“I know those people and those reports really well, ” I muttered grumpily. “I don’t get it. Even Jerry Brown, our once and possibly future governor has gotten all law-and-orderish lately.”

Just yesterday, I told Mauer, some drug enforcement organization gave Jerry an award for having helped defeat Proposition 5, the proposed drug diversion law.”

“Yeah,” said Mauer. “And he used to be liberal.”

“Isn’t there any good news for us?” I noticed my voice was starting to get unpleasantly whiny.

“Well, nationally, we’re cautiously optimistic. We’ve met with Obama’s transition team and most of the people who are being appointed are either friends of ours or friends of friends of ours. And he has good things on his website.”

Of course, we all love the website, general though it may be. “What about Eric Holder?” I asked.

“We’re not sure,” Mauer said. “He hasn’t been a big friend of sentencing reform in the past….but we feel he’s someone we can talk to so we’re……”

“Cautiously optimistic?”

“Cautiously optimistic.”

Well, it’s better than nothing. In California, right now, we don’t even have that.

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PS: Nationally there is some real cause for hope also on the legislative side through a new proposed bill called the Youth Promise Act that has recently been gathering a lot of heat.

On February 19 there will be a public hearing for the bill in Los Angeles. More on that next week.