A BAD HABIT

North Carolina's habitual felon law boosts prison crowding, and seems to
risk capricious and uneven measures of justice

The idea behind a habitual felon law is that some people never learn. They
break the law again and again, are not appreciative of the plea bargains
and short sentences they get, and thus must be required to check in to the
Gray Bar Motel for an extended stay. That may be a get-tough crowd-pleaser
- -- assuming the crowd is full of prosecutors -- but the fact is that in the
2002-2003 fiscal year, 80 percent of the 761 people convicted and sentenced
under North Carolina's habitual felon law were non-violent offenders.

Most of them were drug criminals; others committed property crimes. And so
now those folks are at the Gray Bar, with room service provided by the
taxpayers. Consider, for example, that a 1,000-bed maximum security prison
costs about $80 million to build and $18 million a year to operate.

The News & Observer's Dan Kane last week cited the story of a young woman,
28-year-old Jennifer Bigham, who has had a serious drug problem and has fed
it with theft and forgery. With three felony convictions behind her, Bigham
now has been sentenced under the habitual felon law for another property
crime, and this time, she's to be in prison until at least 2009.

Some prisoner advocates and others, including the N.C. Sentencing and
Policy Advisory Commission -- which has advised members of the General
Assembly on sentencing issues -- believe the habitual felon law needs to be
modified. That's particularly the case in light of structured sentencing
rules that were revised in the early 1990s. The rules set guidelines
designed to ensure tough punishment for a variety of crimes, and also to
factor in previous convictions.

Still others who object to the habitual felon law, including some defense
attorneys, note its expense, and the fact that the decisions to use the law
in a prosecution aren't consistent. Said one defense lawyer: "So, whether
you get to be a habitual felon doesn't depend on what you do, it depends on
where you do it." In other words, on which prosecutor has jurisdiction.

Do some people who are chronic lawbreakers need to go to prison? Sure. Is
prison sometimes the only, and best, alternative for those people? Absolutely.

But non-violent criminals are clearly becoming more and more of a burden on
the system, and on taxpayers. It certainly would be more economically
efficient to consider house arrest or a monitoring device of some kind
whereby these individuals could be "watched" almost as closely as they
might be in prison. They could be working to pay restitution for thefts, or
in community service. They could be in drug rehabilitation programs that
might really do them some good.

This seems like a sensible way in which to address punishment for crimes
and also to save money on the prison system (and the overburdened court
system) without sacrificing the safety of North Carolina citizens. And,
while lawmakers generally have no interest in doing anything that a
political opponent might use to accuse them of "coddling criminals," they
should be willing to consider revisions in a law that seems both
duplicative (of the structured sentencing rules) and seriously flawed in
its application.