sentencing
Racial breakdown of crime and conviction rates in CT
Feb 22nd
The OLR has been doing some terrific work that I have been neglecting. One example is this report dated January 18, ’08, titled essentially the same as the title of this post. Another is this report on the cost of incarceration broken down by correctional facility and the cost of a career criminal (answer: Northern CI, where it costs $100k to incarcerate one inmate for one year). All of the criminal justice reports are collected here. I’m still looking for data on racial disparities at sentencing, either in CT or elsewhere in the country.
The racial breakdown data is interesting and is reproduced after the jump.
Youngest lifer back in jail: (why) are(n’t) you surprised?
Feb 20th
Lionel Tate, sentenced to life without parole at age 14 is back in prison after pleading guilty to holding up a pizza delivery man. Tate was sentenced to life for an incident that occurred when he was 12, in which a 6 year old girl was killed. Tate alleged that she died as a result of wrestling moves gone wrong. He’s just 20 now.
Tate spent three years in prison before he was released pursuant to a new plea agreement. But by then, had a troubled child been lost forever?
Certainly, a life was lost and it is probably indisputable that Tate was responsible to some degree. But what punishment does that warrant? Especially for someone that young? Is putting such a young child in prison the right thing to do in this circumstance? If found guilty, he must “pay”, certainly, but with overwhelming evidence of the slow development of adolescents (he wasn’t even a teen when this happened), should the appropriate sentence have been some form of strong rehabilitation?
We’ve all read the studies and reports that lay out the detrimental impact of housing juveniles and non-violent offenders with violent offenders – the uninitiated emerge from such situations hardened; no better than they were before they went in.
So was this new crime committed by Tate a foregone conclusion? Should we be surprised or even disappointed? Did the three years he spent in the company of older, more experienced criminals wipe away any hope of him leading a productive life? (I have been unable to discover whether he spent those three years in prison or some sort of juvenile detention facility. Let us assume he spent them in a real prison, for he is certainly not the only juvenile to be sentenced to such illustrious company.)
Tell an adult that he is a bad person often enough and he’ll start acting like it. One can only speculate with fear the impact it has on a 12-year old.
Should Tate’s case illustrate the need for more nuanced punishment schemes? Or is he undeserving of any lifeline, despite his tender age? Was the future etched in stone when he entered that prison?
I don’t know the answer, but it’s certainly worth thinking about.
Panel to recommend permanent sentencing commission
Feb 4th
A temporary sentencing task force created by the legislature may be set to recommend that it be made permanent. The panel will release its findings and recommendations later this month. One thing it will not do, however, is recommend sentencing guidelines (thank God).
“The judges would have a problem with any permanent commission that is a precursor to guidelines,” said Judge Patrick Carroll, the state’s deputy chief court administrator.
Carroll likely has nothing to worry about.
“We’re not into guidelines in this state – not judges, prosecutors or defense lawyers,” said Thomas Ullmann, a public defender in New Haven who headed the task force subcommittee studying the possibility of a permanent commission.
The story says that CT needs a permanent commission in part because there is no communication between various agencies. Yeah, that’s fine and all, but I think CT needs a sentencing commission or task force more because of the severe disparities in sentences – both geographic and racial – and we need to tackle the overcrowding problem somehow.
It would help lawmakers better understand which types of offenders need to be in prison and who is most likely to reoffend after their release, said state Rep. Michael Lawlor, D-East Haven, a former prosecutor and chairman of the legislature’s Judiciary Committee.
“You don’t want the legislature to just guess at what the solutions might be,” Lawlor said. “And I think that’s what the legislature has done a lot of in the past.”
The commission could determine why Connecticut’s prison population has one of the largest racial disparities in the nation, Lawlor said.
I look forward to their report later this month. So should you.
Study finds CT’s death penalty racially biased
Dec 12th
Only now is word leaking about the substance of the death penalty challenge that is the subject of tomorrow’s hearing [previous post here]. The seven inmates that are party to the challenge are relying on a study [pdf] by Yale Law School professor, which finds that there is racial disparity and arbitrariness in the way the death penalty is charged and sought in Connecticut.
Yale Law School professor John J. Donohue III, who oversaw the study, said one of the most surprising findings is that the death penalty is often not sought for crimes that are more violent and disturbing than ones where lethal injection is pursued.
“There was basically no rational system to explain who got the death penalty,” Donohue said Tuesday. “It really is about as random a process as you can possibly construct.”
Over the past year, researchers reviewed 207 murder cases dating back to the early 1970s that were eligible for death penalty prosecution. Donohue said 60 percent of the defendants were minorities and 40 percent were white, numbers that conflict with the percentages in the general population.
Among the other findings in Donohue’s 128-page report:
- Black defendants receive death sentences at three times the rate of white defendants in cases where the victims were white.
- Killers of white victims are treated more severely than people who kill minorities, when it comes time to decide the charges.
- Minorities who kill whites receive death sentences at higher rates than minorities who kill minorities.
Of the inmates on death row, four are black, three are white and two are Hispanic.
I’m looking for a copy of this study. If someone has it, please let me know. Here it is.
Racial disparities in sentencing for drug offenses
Dec 5th
Via SL & P, the Justice Policy Institute has released this new report, which finally gets close what I’ve been looking for for quite a while now. A study that examines incarceration rates to see whether there is a racial bias in who gets sent to jail and who doesn’t.
The study found that counties with higher poverty rates, larger African-American populations and larger police or judicial budgets imprison people for drug offenses at higher rates than counties without these characteristics. These relationships were found to be independent of whether the county actually had a higher rate of crime. (The findings for the 198 counties.)
Among some of the findings:
- In 2002, there were 19.5 million illicit drug users, 1.5 million drug arrests, and 175,000 people admitted to prison for a drug offense. While African Americans and whites use and sell drugs at similar rates, African Americans are ten times more likely than whites to be imprisoned for drug offenses.
- Of the 175,000 admitted to prison nationwide in 2002, over half were African American, despite the fact that African Americans make up less than 13 percent of the U.S. population.
There is an interactive map by county here and the full report can be accessed here.
Early morning criminal justice roundup
Sep 25th
The most interesting story is this one about lawmakers considering a proposal to limit probation to a 2-year term, down from the current 5-years.
The goal is to focus supervision on offenders during their first two years of probation, when most violations occur, said William Carbone, executive director of the state Court Support Services Division.
Nearly 90 percent of probation violations in the state occurred during the first two years, according to statistics presented yesterday during a hearing in Hartford.
The option would give offenders an incentive to turn their lives around and would reduce the number of people who go back to prison, Carbone said.
Now this is sensible legislation, which comes from the sentencing task force, which has studies these issues over time.
Judge Patrick Clifford, chief administrative judge for criminal matters, said judges should have the right to order probation terms longer than two years.
Longer terms might be warranted in cases in which larceny offenders need time to repay victims, Clifford said. But he agreed most people on probation don’t need more than three years.
“If the person hasn’t violated within two or three years, it’s kind of just waiting for them to make a mistake,” Clifford said.
Okay, enough of the good stuff. On to the depressing stuff.
More stories this morning on Gov. Rell’s parole ban, but this time with more substance. First up is the prison population shift. As noted yesterday, more than 1,200 non-violent inmates are being fast-tracked for parole to make room for the violent offenders who have been denied parole.
The next one says simply: Parole Review Affects Hundreds.
Nearly 40 percent of all parolees were serving sentences for drug offenses, which are not classified as violent, according to state records. But there are also hundreds of parolees completing sentences for killings, rapes, robberies and kidnapping. Murderers are no longer eligible for parole, but 60 inmates who committed murders before a 1981 change in the law are on parole.
In recent years, the number of parole violators back in prison at any one time has hovered between 400 and 500, state records show. But that may rise considerably with Rell’s crackdown.
“If we identify anyone in this review who has failed to follow the terms of their release – or if anyone currently on parole fails to do so in the future – we will revoke their parole and return them to prison to serve the balance of their sentence,” Rell said last weeek.
Shame on you
Jul 23rd
A prosecutor in CT tried to say to a woman. The judge stopped him from doing so.
Okay, well, not literally. Manchester prosecutor Adam Scott sought to make public shaming a condition of Accelerated Rehabilitation (a pre-trial diversion program) for 55 year old teacher Angela Schmidt. Ms. Schmidt was granted AR for falsely accusing a man of sexually assaulting her. Scott wanted her to take out an ad saying that she had done so.
The article notes diverse opinions from attorneys in the state. Some came out against the idea and some didn’t think it was that bad. I
“It reminded me of the pilgrims and stockade in front of town square,” said Schmidt’s lawyer, Richard Brown. “Why would you ask a defendant, not found guilty, to be put through such humiliation? It’s a punitive sanction and is inconsistent with punishment we should give to people.”
Timothy Everett, a clinical law professor at UConn Law School, agreed.
“When a person receives accelerated rehabilitation they still retain the right against self-incrimination,” he said. “The defendant was not convicted of anything. Admitting in public print is self-incrimination and could be used against her.”
Everett called the request “pushing the envelope” and said he had never heard of it being made in the past. He has seen judges order a person to write a letter of apology, but not to advertise it to the public.
“Requiring someone to shame [himself] is a constitutional violation,” he said.
Everett and Brown also agreed that accelerated rehabilitation usually imposes conditions that are constructive and can build a person’s character. This condition would have only punished and humiliated, they contend.
While I agree that the imposition of such a condition would probably be in contravention to the purpose of AR, I haven’t made up my mind about the use of shaming punishments as a sentence.
Deep down inside me, somewhere, are still burned the lessons of childhood, where I learned the quickest when others made fun of me. Then I think back to the severe pain and embarrassment that accompanied those tauntings and I think, maybe it isn’t such a good idea after all.
Racial disparity, cont’d…
Jul 19th
More on yesterday’s report. Judiciary co-chair Mike Lawlor weighs in:
That shows the disparities may be more between the rich and the poor, said state Rep. Mike Lawlor, D-East Haven, co-chairman of the legislature’s Judiciary Committee.
Connecticut’s white population is unusually rich, meaning more white offenders can afford the best attorneys and avoid prison than minority defendants, Lawlor said.
Uh, what? Rep. Lawlor, in case you didn’t know, your state (my state, our state) has one of the best public defender systems in the country. I would rather be represented by a public defender in this state. Please, do not disparage the brilliant attorneys working for our division so. Them’s fightin’ words – and a little heartbreaking 
You want to know another reason why the racial disparity is such? Because we classify non-violent drug offenders are violent based on their past history and keep them in jail longer.
That’s not to say CT hasn’t taken steps:
The legislature in 2005 increased the amount of crack cocaine a person must carry to be charged with planning to sell drugs. A commission of legislators, officials and policy experts is studying sentencing reform, including possibly changing the state’s mandatory minimum drug laws.
Nearly two-thirds of defendants charged with mandatory minimum drug crimes are black or Hispanic, state statistics show.
“The overrepresentation of people of color in our correctional institutions has long been of great concern to me,” Correction Commissioner Theresa Lantz said. “While I can’t control who is placed in my custody, I strive to address literacy, employment skills, sobriety and housing during incarceration, so that these individuals are prepared for a productive re-entry to their communities.”
Sentencing disparities anyone?
Disturbing racial disparities in incarcerated population
Jul 18th
The Sentencing Project has issued [blurb] its latest report [pdf] on State rates of incarceration based on race and ethnicity has some disturbing news for Connecticut. Connecticut is one of five states where African-Americans are incarcerated at twelve times the rate of whites.
That’s not all. Connecticut’s Hispanic to white incarceration ratio is three times the national average and is the highest in the nation at more than six times.
Some explanation for this:
Other states – Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island – maintain black rates of incarceration that are near or below the national average, but have white rates of incarceration that are less than half the national average. Thus, an average black rate of incarceration and a low white rate of incarceration results in a high black-to-white ratio.
Obviously a big contributor to this is the drug policy – especially the sentence enhancements for sale within school zones [previous commentary here].
What is more important and more interesting is whether there are racial disparities in sentences imposed. I asked about this before, but didn’t generate much discussion. Perhaps this time will be different. Are there such disparities? Can they be proven? Is there a remedy besides sentencing guidelines? Obviously, the statistics indicate that there might be something there, but is it quantifiable?
What should one look to in determining whether racial disparities at sentencing exist?
Finally, sentencing disparities in capital punishment rates are also documented. Where there’s smoke….
On a related note, here’s another study [full study] released today [release] by the Justice Policy Institute that finds that anti-gang legislation that advocates locking up gang members and other initiatives aimed at reducing gang violence doesn’t work; rather it adds to the gang problem.
The little state that could
Jun 27th
Rhode Island’s legislature voted to remove mandatory-minimums.
The General Assembly has approved legislation that rolls back mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes, a move that proponents hope will cut costs, ease overcrowding at the state prison and give judges more discretion in meting out punishment.
The vote, in the waning hours of the legislative session that concluded early Saturday, comes as the prison grapples with a rising inmate population and adds Rhode Island to a growing list of states where lawmakers have mulled changes to their sentencing policies.
The legislation repeals minimum sentences imposed for drug crimes and also reduces the maximum punishment an offender can receive. Under the bill, for instance, a defendant convicted of possessing more than one kilogram of heroin, or more than five kilograms of marijuana, would no longer face a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years in prison.
“It would give the judges discretion,” Metts said. “Certainly in the late teens, early 20s, people do make mistakes. It shouldn’t mean that your life is over.”
It’s not clear how much impact the bill would have on the inmate population — which surged earlier this month to a record-high of 3,889 — since most drug offenders in Rhode Island already receive relatively short prison sentences. In 2006, the average sentence for a drug offense was 20 months, with only 6 inmates getting sentences of 10 years or more, according to data provided by the state Department of Corrections.
Criticisms of mandatory-minimum sentences have been voiced for a number of years now, so it is great to see a state taking this step to address head on the problems of prison overcrowding. Whether this has any actual impact remains to be seen. According to the linked article, Michigan is apparently the only other state in the country that has taken the step of eliminating min-mans for drug offenses.
Some CT prison population fun facts
Jun 21st
Via the Office of Policy and Management‘s “Comprehensive Plan For the Connecticut Criminal Justice System 2007 [pdf]“:
- Connecticut’s Rate of Incarceration per 100,000 of population is the highest in the Northeast at 373.
- The average for the Northeast is 298 per 100K
- Connecticut’s Rate of Incarceration is 28th in the country, however.
- The top offense among the incarcerated population is Violation of Probation, accounting for 13.57% of all inmates
- Second on the list is Sale of a Narcotic substance, accounting for 11.12%.
- The rest are all under 5.32%
- 92% of the prison population is male.
- Parole is granted in 82% of cases that make it to a full panel or administrative review.
- There are 1663 crimes in the State of Connecticut for which incarceration is a possible sentence.
There is also a 2007 Recidivism Study, which reveals the following information:
- The overall reconviction rate was 39%.
- The overall resentenced to prison rate was 22%.
- Not shockingly, inmates released from prison with no community supervision were most likely to be reconvicted and resentenced to prison for a new offense.
- Inmates convicted of property offenses have the highest recidivism rates.
- Recidivism rates for sexual offenses was the lowest (22%), even lower than motor vehicle offenses (31%) [Full chart on page 6]
There is so much more in these reports. I will continue to sift through the information and present it.
Technorati Tags: connecticut, prison population, statistics, recidivism
Why don’t we have jury sentencing in non-capital criminal cases?
Jun 5th
Prof. Berman asks this question (using better language) here. My initial reaction is that there are a few reasons for this. Jury trials in non-capital cases do not usually involve mitigation evidence (neither do they in capital cases, but there are distinct phases of that trial), which would normally be presented during the sentencing hearing. In order to have a jury qualified to sentence, there would need to be another hearing (or maybe even trial) at which jurors are selected, seated and presented with whatever mitigation evidence the defendant wishes to introduce and the state wishes to rebut.
The jury would also need to be informed of the law, the mandatory-minimum sentences and the “going rate” of similar crimes in that jurisdiction. More often than not (and I am assuming a jurisdiction that does not have strict sentencing guidelines) the judge takes only the facts of the case into account, but also personal history, the wishes of the victim and the severity of the offense into account. These are not factual determinations, which are properly left to the jury.
By comparison, in the penalty phase of a capital case (as with any guilt phase), the jury is charged with the task of evaluating the evidence and applying it to the elements of a statute to find aggravating factors. The same with the guilty phase – evaluate the evidence and determine whether the elements of an offense have been proved. Their role, while paramount, is also limited.
Personal opinions and biases have no role in guilt deliberations, but are often strong factors in sentencing a defendant.
I haven’t thought about this much, so I may be way off in my perception. Thoughts?
A call for change on mandatory sentences
Jun 3rd
The Stamford Advocate has this story today, chronicling the problem with minimum-mandatory sentences in drug cases and the growing calls for a change in the legislation.
The problem with mandatory-minimums has become apparent over the past few years and many states have or are considering abolishing them. However, they still exist in Connecticut and defense attorneys and judges have the same complaint:
Few people are convicted of mandatory minimum charges in drug cases. Instead, prosecutors use the threat of a mandatory minimum conviction as leverage to entice guilty pleas to lesser charges.
A variety of attorneys, judges and experts statewide want mandatory minimum laws scrapped or adjusted. About two dozen states have adjusted mandatory minimum rules in the last decade as critics complain they result in severe sentences and prison overcrowding.
Connecticut has a task force whose job is to review sentencing schemes and recommend changes
“I think we should just get rid of them,” said Thomas Ullmann, a public defender in New Haven and a member of the task force. “Prosecutors bully people all the time with mandatory minimums.”
Prosecutors admit they use mandatory minimum charges as a negotiating tool. But they point out that police choose the charges in most Connecticut jurisdictions, including Stamford and Norwalk. The bargaining, prosecutors say, saves defendants prison time by giving them the chance to plead guilty to lesser charges instead of risking a trial and a minimum prison term.
“The legislature put us in a straitjacket,” said David Cohen, state’s attorney for the Stamford-Norwalk judicial district, “but if we don’t feel a mandatory minimum is appropriate, we can lower the charges.”
Well, either the state is bound by these mandatory-minimums or can offer a plea on lesser charges. What usually happens, however, is that the threat of min-man sentences are used to pressure the defendant into pleading to something and not seeking acceptance into a program.
The statistics are overwhelming:
There are about 26,000 cases each year statewide involving mandatory minimum charges, according to a 2005 state study. In about 21,000 of those cases, the main charge is selling drugs or driving under the influence of alcohol.
The rest involve violent crimes such as rape, murder and kidnapping.
Six different drug charges require mandatory minimum sentences ranging from two to 10 years.
Police often charge drug defendants with several of those charges in the same case; about 70 percent of mandatory minimum charges are drug-related, the 2005 study found.
Judges have some discretion, but not enough. This is the knock on rigid sentencing schemes, including guidelines like those in Federal court. Sentencing should be case-specific, based on the individual facts and circumstances of each prosecution. Mandatory-minimum sentences take away that discretion and there is no ability to shape the sentence to best suit the facts of a particular case.
Geographical sentencing disparities
May 2nd
Prof. Berman points to a news story that highlights the differences in sentences handed out in rural areas and urban areas. The post itself is innocuous, but the comments are very interesting, albeit contentious. The gist of the reporting is that sentences in rural areas are higher than those in urban areas. You might not be surprised. Ask yourself why. The offenses are the same, regardless of where they are committed; the sentencing ranges are the same throughout the state. So why is it not surprising that this happens? Do we assume that those living in rural areas have a different moral outlook on life than those living in urban areas?
Should this have any bearing on the lengths of sentences handed out? This is the problem that I highlighted earlier when talking about increased victim involvement in the criminal justice system. There are a multitude of factors that play a role in deciding the lengths of sentences. This is another.
How is this different from sentencing disparities based on race? Granted, demography is not a “protected class”, but still, the principle seems to be the same. Does anyone see an equal protection argument here?
Technorati Tags: sentencing, disparity, ohio
recent comments