As Gov. Deval Patrick and legislative leaders close ranks around controversial “three strikes” legislation, a group calling itself Smart on Crime Massachusetts today called on the officials to rethink their support for the controversial sentencing provisions.
Members of the group said the legislation would lead to increased prison spending without any increase in public safety. “This is not a bill that is smart about crime,” said Charles Ogletree, director of Harvard Law School’s Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice. “This is something that was thrown together by the Senate and the House trying to show that they are tough on crime.”
Rev. Eugene Rivers, the longtime Boston community activist, complained that state lawmakers had barely read the legislation before passing it and issued a challenge to Patrick. “We call on the black religious leadership of this state to have the boldness and the courage to challenge Caesar when he is black,” Rivers thundered at a well-attended State House press conference.
Under the bill, which is currently before a House-Senate conference committee, a person convicted of two serious offenses who is found guilty of a third serious crime would be subject to the maximum penalty under the law and no possibility of parole. Both the House and Senate versions of the bill include the three-strike provisions, but the House version contains fewer violent crimes that would trigger the penalty. The Senate bill would also require mandatory post-release supervision for prisoners who have served their entire sentences and reduce mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses.
The tough-on-crime tone of the Massachusetts legislation stands in stark contrast to what is going on in many other states trying to find ways to move inmates out of prison. As CommonWealth reported in its recent issue (under the headline “Smart on crime”), a group calling itself Right on Crime is rallying conservatives to the notion that taxpayer dollars can be saved by doing away with mandatory sentences for nonviolent crimes, easing penalties for minor parole violations, and investing in treatment and education programs for inmates. Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush have jumped on the bandwagon.
Patrick, in his state-of-the-state speech Monday night, said he favored a smart-on-crime policy, but his approach differed from the one being pushed by Rivers and Ogletree. Patrick said he supports lengthening the time before a third-time violent felon would become eligible for parole and the elimination of parole for anyone whose third felony is murder or a similar crime. The governor also said he favors granting parole to nonviolent drug offenders after serving half their sentence, which he said would reduce the prison population by 400 to 500 and save the state millions of dollars in correction costs. He also said he favors more education, job training, and drug treatment for offenders in prison and mandatory supervision after release.
“We must be smarter about how we protect public safety,” he said. “That means targeting the most dangerous and damaging for the strictest sentences, and better preparing the non-dangerous for eventual release and integration.”
According to information distributed by Smart on Crime MA, the proposed legislation would force an already overburdened Department of Corrections to spend between $75 million and $125 million more per year in addition to forcing the department to build a new prison for 1,500 to 2,500 habitual offenders. Kathleen Dennehy, a former Massachusetts Department of Correction commissioner, said those prisoners would be disproportionately African-American and Latino.