Yes Virginia, Prison Reform is Coming

This has been another dismal General Assembly for people interested in prison reform in Virginia. Bills seeking to automatically restore voting rights to felons, increase good time earning levels for the incarcerated, and substantially decrease the exorbitant rates charged inmates and their families all failed to gain traction in the Republican dominated House (even with the backing of Governor McDonnell). Virginia, it seems, continues to buck the national trend of being “smart on crime” and maintains a criminal justice system that spends over a billion dollars annually to incarcerate 40,000 inmates, a majority of whom are locked up for nonviolent crimes and are candidates for alternative sentencing – if the Commonwealth was serious about alternatives to prison.

            All is not lost (even without hoping sequestration occurs and Virginia takes a billion dollar hit on defense department cuts). This past week, the Congressional Research Service issued a groundbreaking report urging massive overhaul of the Federal criminal justice and prison system.

            The system, the report concludes, is horribly broken. Recommendations include:

1)      Reinstating parole

2)      Expanding earned good-time credits

3)      Expending the power of the courts to reduce imposed sentences

4)      Modify mandatory minimum sentences

5)       Place more offenders in alternative sentence environments including probation

As a member of VaCure noted, “Alleluia” Marc Levin, a leader in the conservative “Right on Crime” campaign, has given the best explanation for prison reform:

            “Every dollar spent on prisons that doesn’t need to be spent there can’t be spent on roads, infrastructure, schools and all other priorities that the states need to have, to have a successful business environment … An inefficient corrections system hurts business with higher taxes.”

“Right on Crime” understands that “locking up non-violent offenders with dangerous, violent offenders, doesn’t solve problems, it creates them” (Levin’s words).

            Virginia spends $26,000 per year to house a person in prison. Is that a good investment? Not when two out of three released felons return back to the system within three years. The money isn’t well spent if it isn’t used to address the underlying problems that lend to re-offending: lack of education, lack of job skills, drug and alcohol abuse/addiction, and mental health.

            Now the Federal government is starting to figure out its dollars must be spent more wisely. States like Texas, New York, Georgia, Indiana, and Ohio are already at the forefront of prison/sentencing reform. Eventually Virginia will begin the process.