Archive for December 9, 2007
Criminal justice reform roundup
Dec 9th
A couple of other interesting articles worth reading:
First, this guest op-ed in the Courant, title “More Prisons Wrong Approach“, which argues that
Although these bills claim to reform the justice system, most of them propose a more extreme form of the existing system, which over-funds imprisonment and de-funds education, health care, welfare, basic human services and job training.
The most prominent of these bills, proposed by Rep. Michael P. Lawlor of East Haven and Sen. Andrew J. McDonald of Stamford, proposes to spend $260 million on two new prisons, which would cost $400 million in bonding over 20 years.
The same bill proposes to spend $1.77 million on counseling. This is a ratio of 100-1 of spending on prisons, as opposed to people. This is not a reform bill. It is a more extreme version of policies that have already destroyed tens of thousands of lives and families and decimated many communities.
To see the devastating effects of the already existing harsh prison laws in Connecticut, we need look no farther than our state capital.
Each imprisoned generation, under our system of priorities, begets an even larger imprisoned generation. At some point in the past, one out of 10 children in Hartford had a parent in prison. Harsher sentencing laws were passed.
Now one out of six children in Hartford has a parent in prison. Based on the trends we see, harsher policies — more prisons, “three strikes” laws, mandatory minimum sentences and parole bans — will lead to a situation where one out of two children in Hartford will have a parent in prison. And soon the statisticians will start to count the number of children in Hartford with both parents in prison. Will this lead to greater safety? No.
and second, there’s rumblings from the ACLU on prison overcrowding:
The American Civil Liberties Union is raising questions about what it calls potentially dangerous and inhumane conditions from prison overcrowding in Connecticut.
The civil liberties organization is asking Connecticut prison officials for a response to complaints about conditions.
The ACLU letter to state Correction Commissioner Theresa C. Lantz warns about alleged unconstitutional treatment of prison inmates.
Seems like we don’t learn from our own lawsuits.
New study shows 3-strikes would have little impact
Dec 9th
Given that the legislature has voted to return in a special session this upcoming January to discuss the legislative proposals to fix the criminal justice system, the “state” asked Central Connecticut State University to conduct a study on the impact a three strikes law would have had in CT.
The study, which examined the murder convictions in 2004, found that out of the 49 convictions in the State, only 6 of the defendants would have been subject to a three-strikes law. The study also showed that 60 percent of the 49 people convicted of murder statewide in 2004 had no record of previous violence.
“I don’t know that there is a proposal that would have stopped what happened in Cheshire,” said the study’s author, Stephen Cox, chairman of CCSU’s Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice. “Common burglars just do not turn into murderers who sexually assault people.”
The study’s results do not necessarily mean a three-strikes law has no value, experts said; six of the convicted murderers could have been in prison for life under California’s three-strikes law, and they wouldn’t have gotten the chance to kill.
“As a policy analyst, I’d say that’s a small number,” Cox said. “But as a victim advocate, I’d say it’s huge.”
The study found that 28 of the 49 murderers had been arrested at least three times before killing someone but mostly for nonviolent crimes or petty offenses.
Twelve, nearly 25 percent, had never been arrested before. About half the murders involved domestic violence.
It would be impossible to predict who of the general population, without a record, is going to commit a murder. The question then becomes, do we focus on the 3% that would have come within a 3-strikes law or the 50% that wouldn’t?
“A three-strikes law will make us feel better,” state Rep. Gail Hamm, D-Middletown, said during a special Judiciary Committee public hearing last month. “But it won’t address the revolving-door criminals. What are we going to do with the people who are getting in and out (of prison) all the time?”
Hamm also touched on the unpredictability of homicide.
“Anybody can walk into anybody’s home at any time and kill them,” she said.
Still, it is common for people to believe they can predict and prevent tragedies, experts said.
“The notion that you can predict events based on someone’s behavior through legislation is mythic,” said Todd Fernow, a professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law and director of the school’s Criminal Law Clinic. “It comes from a natural human tendency to believe you are in control of things.”
“There’s no silver bullet that’s going to give us the accuracy we’d like to have and the public would like to see us have,” said William Carbone, head of the state’s Court Support Services Division.
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