March 15, 2009
Cons commit crimes after early release
Sentencing guidelines enable repeat offenders
By Jennifer Brooks
THE TENNESSEAN
A college student is kidnapped, brutalized and murdered. A mother looks up from changing her baby's diaper to find a gun pointing in her face. A 62-year-old man is bludgeoned with a baseball bat in a mall parking lot.
The http://data.tennessean.com/v2/bin/crimeMap/display/index.php">crimes share one trait, aside from their brutality. In each case, the person charged with the offense was anhttp://www.tennessean.com/article/20090222/NEWS03/90222027">ex-convict, out on probation or parole — a situation Tennessee prosecutors and law enforcement leaders say is all too common because of how the state sentences its convicted criminals.
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20090226/NEWS03/902260358/1009/NEWS02">Deshaun J. Lewis, 21, was convicted of felony aggravated assault in June 2008 and of felony vehicular assault in October. He was out on probation in February, when he snatched 18-year-old Tennessee State University student Racquel Johnson as she was leaving work at Starbucks. Police found her body a week later. Lewis admitted the crime to police.
Amanda Sue Kelley, 19, was arrested seven times last year on charges that ranged from drug possession to domestic assault and theft. In January, police say, she wrenched open the door of a parked car, pointed a gun at a woman changing her 13-month-old daughter's diaper in the back seat, and demanded cash.
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20090306/NEWS03/903060354/1017/NEWS01">Robert Tice Jr., 21,was released from prison in January after serving three years for burglary. Police say he and several accomplices attacked 62-year-old Robert DeMoss Jr. in the Mall at Green Hills parking garage earlier this month. Tice is accused of wielding the baseball bat.
Every time a repeat offender re-offends, the cry goes up: Why were these people on the street?
"These people don't deserve to walk the streets," said Metro Police Chief Ronal Serpas. "Look, we're not saying lock them all up and throw away the key. Let's take the most dangerous ones and put them away."
Tennessee has the second-highest violent crime rate in the nation, according to FBI crime statistics. Serpas and fellow members of the Tennessee Public Safety Coalition, a statewide association of law enforcement officials and prosecutors, say at least part of the reason why lies in the state's sentencing practices.
"If we concentrate on (locking up) the repeat offenders and the most violent offenders, the crime rate will go down," said Knox County District Attorney Randy Nichols, who joined the public safety coalition in Nashville this week to push the legislature for tougher sentencing for at least a few categories of violent crime.
High cost is a concern
But longer jail terms come with higher costs. The legislature estimates it would cost $160 million to implement the modest sentencing changes the coalition is pushing. Just eliminating the possibility of parole for first-time convictions for armed robbery could cost $73.7 million, by the lawmakers' estimate.
The counter-argument, of course, is that allowing violent, repeat offenders to stay on the streets could come at an even greater cost to the state: in lives and property lost, and in a growing sense of insecurity that can frighten residents and scare away new business for a community.
Tennessee has made some notable changes in sentencing laws in recent years. It toughened penalties for domestic violence and passed a "crooks with guns" bill in 2007 that has drastically increased the penalties for weapons-related crimes.
But none of this answers the question of why someone like Deshaun Lewis was out on the streets, even after two felony convictions in a single year. The answer is: he was out on the streets because that's the way Tennessee's sentencing guidelines currently work.
If Tennessee locked up every person who broke the law for the duration of their sentences, there wouldn't be enough jails or beds in this or in the surrounding states to house everyone.
One out of every 40 Tennessee adults is either imprisoned or out on probation or parole, according to a survey by the http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/report_detail.aspx?id=49382">Pew Center on the States, which is studying state correctional systems.
The majority of convicts in the correctional system are out on the streets, not behind bars.
By the Pew Center's estimate, in 2008, there were 10,617 parolees — former inmates who had done prison time and been released by the parole board; and 47,850 people on probation — on supervised release in the community, rather than imprisoned.
In the same year the center counted 23,590 adults in Tennessee prisons and 19,248 in local jails.
Whether someone gets probation is a matter for the courts, and the sentencing guidelines. Lesser felonies almost always mean probation. Getting parole is trickier — the parole board only approves about 30 percent of petitions in a given year, and most offenders have to serve at least 30 percent of their time before they are eligible to ask for parole.
Some turn lives around
There are violent, unrepentant, irredeemable criminals out there. But that's not every ex-convict. Robert "Bo'' Irvin, executive director of the Tennessee Bureau of Probation and Parole wants the public to know that there are plenty of ex-convicts who have turned their lives around, and plenty of community-based programs in this state that exist to give them the help they need to do it.
"It can be very frustrating, but at the same time it can be the most rewarding job you've ever had," Irvin said. "To see an offender home with his kids, providing for them, that's something."
Tougher sentencing guidelines don't necessarily mean more people behind bars. New York changed its sentencing guidelines and has seen a sharp drop not only in its violent crime rate, but in the number of people incarcerated. Other states, including Texas, Arkansas, Michigan, Alabama and Mississippi have rushed to follow the New York model.
The Pew Center for the States has been tracking criminal justice trends. In a recent report on state sentencing practices, researchers concluded:
"Serious, chronic and violent offenders belong behind bars, for a long time, and the expense of locking them up is justified many times over. But for hundreds of thousands of lower-level inmates, incarceration costs taxpayers far more than it saves in prevented crime."
It costs about $63.90 a day to keep someone behind bars in Tennessee. A day monitoring someone's probation or parole costs $2.95.
"We really need to do a better job of sorting our offenders by risk," said Adam Gelb, director of the Pew Center on the States' Public Safety Performance Project. "This is less and less an issue of being tough on crime or soft on crime and more an issue of giving the taxpayers a better return on their dollars."
In the past year in Davidson County, 40 percent of the people arrested and charged with homicide or attempted homicide had previous felony convictions — almost 20 percent had a prior conviction for a violent felony.
Metro police, who keep a running tally of repeat offenders, can break the numbers down by individual offenses: 24 percent of the rape suspects they arrest have prior convictions; 40 percent of robbery suspects; 28 percent of those charged with aggravated assault; 40 percent of those charged with burglary; 46 percent of those charged with auto theft; 59 percent of those brought up on drug charges.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment