A bipartisan group of senators, headed by Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, put their own prison reform bill out on Thursday. The Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2015 is just one of the more recent proposals put forward to reduce the overcrowding in, and expense of, the U.S. federal prison system. Families Against Mandatory Minimums put out an excellent overview of the proposed legislation and Julie Stewart, FAMM president, issued this statement, "This bill isn’t the full repeal of mandatory minimum sentences we ultimately need, but it is a substantial improvement over the status quo and will fix some of the worst injustices created by federal mandatory sentences.” It might help fix a few injustices, but it is not going to save any money.
First, the bill calls for a reduction in sentences for inmates who were convicted of crimes associated with crack cocaine. The retroactive proposal would reduce the mandatory minimums associated with the crime and could lead to the early release of almost 6,500 inmates (current federal prison population is about 205,000). That is part of the Sentencing Reform aspects of the bill. However, the remaining portions of the bill will do little to either further reduce prison population or save the tax payer money. It is titled the Corrections, Oversight, Recidivism, Reduction and Eliminating Costs for Taxpayers Act (CORRECTIONS). They should have stopped at COR, because there is no eliminating costs for taxpayers.
The bill would create a new way to categorize inmates according an Assessment System to determine their likelihood of returning to prison on other charges in the future (recidivism). Inmates who are assessed as low risk can earn up to 10 days of credit that can be banked toward their release from prison to a Residential Reentry Center (halfway house). They earn this credit through participation in programs that are meant to reduce recidivism and include having a job in prison, taking educational classes, participating in classes on domestic abuse or being a part of a faith-based class. So an inmate could earn up to 120 days of credit each year toward halfway house. However, even if the inmate is "low risk" and would otherwise qualify, the Senators crafted this bill to exclude a particularly small group of inmates ... in particular, those inmates associated with white collar or economic crimes.
Terrorists and those guilty of child pornography related crimes are excluded along with most white collar inmates. Those convicted of defrauding the U.S. Government (think welfare fraud), identify theft, bribery, securities fraud, obstruction of justice and racketeering, are all excluded under the act. This is a political aspect of the bill because less than 7% of the prison population falls into these types of criminal activity. In addition, the sentences for these crimes typically runs an average of 24 months according to U.S. Sentencing Commission Statistics. They went to a lot of trouble to exclude a population that, if released, would have little affect on the overall population. That is certainly no consolation to those with long white collar prison terms, and there are plenty of those as well.
Estimates from those close to the legislation told me that the bill's sentencing reform (drug crime related) could lead to reducing prison terms for approximately 10,000 inmates ... roughly a 5% reduction from today's population. The release of those inmates will realize reductions in costs in addition to bringing about some fairness in our justice system. Many of these drug offenders were sentenced for crimes that led to decades in prison or draconian sentences compared to the offense. However, the CORRECTIONs part of the bill will do nothing to reduce costs and will offer little more than false hope to inmates and their families.
Many inmates could earn, provided they are not part of the population excluded, more time in the halfway house ... up to 36 months. That is a significant amount of time. The problem is that halfway houses, like prisons, are overcrowded, so there is nowhere for anyone to go. The Government Accountability Office issued a report in February 2012 stating that there was a capacity problem to meet the needs of the Second Chance Act which has led to the release of some inmates. According to the report, "Although the Second Chance Act increase BOPs flexibility to place inmates in RRCs [halfway houses] for up to 12 months ... challenges facing the expansion of its RRC capacity limit the impact of this increased flexibility." It is so bad that many inmates currently only get a few months of halfway house. A recent letter from the Department of Justices to directors of halfway houses estimated that sentence reduction programs that have already been implemented will result in 4,700 inmates needing halfway house placement on November 1. That is a 28% increase over the current halfway house population. However, there will be no increase in halfway house capacity because 4,700 other inmates will not be going to the halfway house until there is more room.
The other problem with halfway houses is that they are so poorly run that many inmates choose avoid them and remain in prison. Can you imagine that staying in prison is preferred over going "halfway" home? Telisha Watkins, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2007 for a cocaine charge, had her prison term commuted by President Obama in July. She should be at a halfway house now but opted to spend her last months inside a federal prison is Waseca, MN. It is a reflection of how bad things have gotten.
Finding additional halfway house capacity is also going to be a challenge. Nobody wants a halfway house in their neighborhood. Zoning issues and community resistance limit the places where halfway houses can be located. Some halfway house inmates are driving over 100 miles a day to a job because they are trying to reintegrate into their local community that is not in the vicinity of the halfway house.
Then we have an issue with older inmates and the costs, mostly medical, associated with incarcerating them. The Bureau of Prisons actually did a pilot program that allowed the transfer of inmates over 65 years old to home detention. To qualify, inmates had to have served at least 10 years, completed 75% of their prison term, had a non-violent crime and were well-behaved inmates. In all, 71 inmates completed the trial, which was stopped in 2010. Under the proposed bill, it would lower the age of inmates to qualify for home detention to 60 years old but add the provision that they must be in need of a nursing home or terminally ill. In other words, while the bill reduced the age, it actually tightened the requirement to qualify.
Obie Chambers, who has a crisis management firm The Exigency Group (where I am also a partner) felt that the public outcry has pushed the demand for criminal justice reform. "While the bill seems to address some reform," Chambers said in an interview, "it does little to actually achieve the desired result." He added, "It brings justice to a few low-level drug dealers, but that, my friend, is not prison reform, that is 'just due.'"
That lawmakers are looking at additional programs and asking for suggestions of jobs that inmates could do, only demonstrates that they lack an understanding of what is going on inside of prisons. There is no halfway house capacity, there are few programs that address recidivism and there are few prison programs for inmates PERIOD. If an inmate is a low security risk and there is a low chance of recidivism (as will be measured under this bill) it begs the question of WHY ARE WE HOLDING THESE PEOPLE IN PRISON ANYWAY? Taxpayers deserve something better than the adult daycare we are paying for now.
If lawmakers want to reduce prison cost they will have to address allowing inmates go home a little earlier than the laws they passed called for. Real prison reform and savings looks more like that proposed in the House's SAFE Justice Act that actually reduces prison terms for non-violent offenders. For some reason, Senator Grassley wanted to draft his own version of justice and savings and in the end, if it passes, we may get neither.
