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Editorial: Bipartisan sentencing reform wise

Thu., Feb. 26, 2015

Congress may be wising up to the virtues of “smart justice,” and the wisdom is bipartisan.

Senators and representatives from both parties are sponsoring bills that would roll back some of the overly punitive legislation of the 1970s and 1980s that has led to a more than fivefold increase in the federal prison population, and a more than tenfold cost to taxpayers. Corrections-related spending consumes one-third the U.S. Department of Justice budget.

Liberals hate the senseless oversentencing, conservatives the prodigious costs. The shift in mindset is much like that occurring at the state and local levels, where it is fostering adoption of smart justice policies in Spokane and elsewhere.

As much as possible, the new approach to criminal justice tries to identify why someone becomes an offender, and what resources short of a jail cell will deter further misbehavior, at the same time assuring public safety. Alternative courts for drug offenders and veterans, for example, are connecting offenders with mental health counseling.

The alternative is an expensive new jail.

In Washington, D.C., lawmakers have introduced three sentence reform bills, with political odd couples such as Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., as co-sponsors of one. Their Justice Safety Valve Act would restore the flexibility judges once had to match the punishment to the crime and the individual instead of putting someone with as minor a third strike as shoplifting away for life.

Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, is co-sponsoring a House measure that would also empower judges to lower sentences related to drug offenses and allow prisoners to seek shorter prison terms or release based on the new criteria. The Smarter Sentencing Act has brought together 200 organizations, a coalition that includes political opposites Koch Industries and American Civil Liberties Union.

Labrador says the bill will restore common sense to sentencing decisions and potentially save taxpayers $24 billion over the next 20 years. It costs the federal government an average $29,000 to keep one inmate locked up for one year.

Tuesday, Labrador and other lawmakers were at the White House, where President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder encouraged them to work toward a compromise measure.

Unfortunately, the senator best-positioned to pass or kill reform measures is Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee. He called the Smarter Sentencing Act “dangerous,” so it and the Safety Valve Act may never reach the Senate floor.

He favors the least flexible alternative, known by the short title of “Corrections Act.” It would enable prisoners to shorten their terms a maximum 25 percent by taking vocational training or drug counseling, or working while incarcerated. It does not address stupid sentencing guidelines that put them in jail to begin with.

Sentencing reform could be one of the best opportunities in the next two years for truly bipartisan lawmaking that undoes one-size-fits-all justice that is neither just nor fitting.