A Pew Center report recently revealed that the nation's overall state prison population has decreased for the first time since 1972. The Center credits the decrease in part to the efforts of large states like California and Texas to keep low level offenders out of prison. As crime rates have been decreasing for nearly two decades, many see the decrease in prison population as an overdue trend. However, many citizens in states like California are upset about the ways in which the states have managed to reduce their prison populations. In some cases, the court of public opinion may force legislators to curtail their efforts to reduce the amount of people required to remain behind bars.
Safety in Times of Financial Strain
Adam Gelb, the director of the public safety project of the Pew Center credits the motivation for reducing the states' prison populations as primarily the need to appropriately hold offenders accountable in ways "short of jamming them back into a $25,000 a year taxpayer-funded prison cell." In states like California that have been hit hard by the recession, reducing the prison population has become a matter of fiscal necessity.
Various states, including California, Illinois, Colorado, Michigan and Oregon have attempted to reduce their prison populations by enacting early release programs. While the nuance of the programs vary from state to state, generally early release entails granting lower-level prisoners "good behavior" credits that ultimately trim the length of their sentences. The rationale behind such programs is that by encouraging good behavior of low-level inmates, the prison population will ultimately decrease in a way in which best ensures that those offenders who pose a low-level risk to society will be punished for their crimes, but not for an unnecessarily long period of time financed by the taxpayers.
However, each large state that has enacted early release programs has experienced a strong backlash from citizens who are concerned that inmates released early pose a greater risk of reoffending. For example, Oregon legislators ultimately suspended their early release program due to backlash sparked by an inflammatory radio campaign. Prosecutors in Michigan are challenging early releases in their state and Colorado has trimmed the eligibility of their early release program from thousands of inmates to hundreds.
The Backlash in California
The loudest objections to California's early release law have been voiced by the non-profit group "Crime Victims United of California" (CVUC) which has sued the state in order to halt early releases. CVUC claims that California's early release law, Senate Bill X3 18 (SBX3 18), violates California's Victim's Bill of Rights Act (Marsy's Law), which has been integrated into the California State Constitution. Specifically, CVUC contends that SBX3 18 violates the provision of Marsy's Law that defends "the public's right to prevent the early release of felons, adequate notice of the release to the victims of those felons and funding of prisons to adequately protect the public." CVUC also takes issue with the fact that Marsy's Law prohibits the legislature from releasing prisoners early due to overcrowding and fiscal problems, which were arguably the motivations behind enacting SBX3 18.
SBX3 18 currently allows certain lower-level offenders to decrease their sentences by six week increments for completing certain rehabilitation programs or earning educational certificates such as a GED, and additionally allows various other one and two day reductions in sentencing time for every day an inmate either exhibits good behavior or participates in programs such as firefighter camp. Inmates can lose these credits if they exhibit criminal misconduct or break prison rules. The law aims to decrease the state's prison population by 6,500 inmates over the next two years, though CVUC contends that as many as 40,000 inmates could be released under the law during that time. SBX3 18 also creates a class of parolees who will not be subject to traditional parole supervision requirements, which makes offending parole terms more difficult.
Though champions of SBX3 18 insist that the early release incentives provide inmates with self-esteem and job training skills which make re-offending less likely, critics like CVUC insist that releasing prisoners early will not allow inmates enough time for their punishment to be effective in these ways. If CVUC prevails in its lawsuit, thousands of inmates who are currently striving to maintain good behavior so that they may be released early will no longer have the motivation to do so.
Speak to an Attorney
The provisions of early release programs can be confusing, especially when legal challenges are continually questioning their language. If you have questions about the early release programs in your state, please contact an experienced criminal defense attorney.
