Newark
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Sentencing reform a
good start toward balancing budget
By Rep. Jay Hottinger, Guest Columnist
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Ohio’s current fiscal crisis has forced the state legislature to
revisit and examine all of the state’s spending, including Ohio’s
criminal sentencing process. Sentencing reform is one of the areas the
Ohio House and Ohio Senate are looking at to solve the budget crisis,
provide financial improvements to the state’s future and refining our
justice system. My colleagues and I think we can diminish the cost of
our criminal justice system for Ohio’s taxpayers, while also
maintaining protection for our communities.
The Council on State Government Justice Center said the number of
people in Ohio prisons will grow to almost 54,000 by 2015, breaching
the capacity of about 38,000, and also estimates if no changes are made
to the current sentencing structure, costs will increase by $1 billion
while the population grows to more than 55,000. Reducing prison
overcrowding will allow the state to reinvest dollars into effective
research-driven community programs that are documented to reduce
recidivism and save taxpayer dollars. If passed, the bill will in all
likelihood reduce the number of inmate beds in the Department of
Rehabilitation and Correction’s prison system by well more than 2,000
and generate a total incarceration cost savings of up to between $90
million to $100 million.
These low-level, nonviolent offenders are taking up a lot of costly
space contributing to over-crowding and are serving along with more
serious and violent offenders. They are not getting the proper alcohol
and drug treatment while there and are much more likely to commit
further crimes and be back in incarceration. According to the DRC,
low-level, nonviolent offenders cost the state $24,000-per-year to
sleep in a prison bed. Passage of these reforms will help reduce the
low-level, shorter-term inmate populations, which will reserve costly
prison beds for the most violent and predatory offenders.
Sentencing reform is not about releasing hardened criminals with
serious felony convictions out on the streets; it’s about transforming
the current system that helps save money by getting low-level offenders
treatment that have a better chance of success so they can change their
lives and no longer be a drain and threat to our communities but
contributors and productive members of our society. One of the
proposals brought forward in HB 86 would hold offenders more
accountable in a more meaningful way by requiring first-time property
crime and drug offenders to serve probation while attending treatment
clinics instead of being sent to prison. However, it would lengthen the
maximum sentences for people convicted of particularly serious and
violent crimes -- providing judges more options when sentencing
lower-level offenders. Another proposal would make more use of Ohio’s
halfway houses by adopting a statewide set of tools for measuring an
offender’s likelihood of committing new crimes. With this provision,
the state would only sentence offenders to community correction
programs who are less likely to commit new crimes after participating
in the programs.
House Bill 86 also encourages offenders to participate in job training,
education courses, substance abuse treatment and other programs that
are approved by the DRC. The bill will allow inmates -- barring sex
offenders -- who successfully complete coursework the opportunity to
earn a credit of one to five days toward reducing their sentences each
month of completion of their courses. Currently, offenders earn one day
of credit off their sentence for each full month of participation in
programming. HB 86 increases the day from 1 to 5 days per month. Their
participation in such courses will reduce the likelihood that they’ll
end up returning to prison by giving them the tools to be productive,
responsible members of society. When offenders are rehabilitated
through successful treatment, their lives are changed and they can
become productive members of society. They can get jobs, and when they
get jobs, they pay taxes. All of society benefits when an offender is
rehabilitated.
Read it at the Newark Advocate
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