TOWARD SMARTER SENTENCING

To hear Republican Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen talk, you'd think the
truth-in-sentencing bill passed the other evening by the Senate differed
vastly from the version he has endorsed. The Senate measure is too watered
down for the Assembly to deign to consider it, he has said.

Actually, the two versions are alike, except in one respect. And that
difference makes the Assembly version -- that is, the Assembly-passed bill
as leaders of that chamber said they would amend it -- a bit more (1)
illogical and (2) unrealistic than the Senate measure.

The Assembly legislation would drastically lengthen the maximum sentences
felons could receive. The Senate version is silent on that issue. Both
versions, however, set up a committee to study the criminal code and make
recommendations on lengths of sentences.

Why legislate sentences, Senate Democrats sensibly reasoned, before the
committee comes back with its recommendations on that very topic? In
specifying sentences and simultaneously setting up a study committee to
make recommendations on sentences, Assembly Republicans are not being
logical.

They are also acting less realistically than the Senate Democrats. Here's
how: A driving force behind early release of inmates is crowded prisons.
Merely passing a law mandating that convicts serve their full sentences
won't make that happen. If prisons remain severely congested, the danger is
that even truthfully sentenced inmates will be released early to make room
for newcomers.

In that case, truth-in-sentencing would become a farce, deepening the
public's mistrust of the criminal justice system.

The Legislature's insatiable penchant for lengthening sentences helps
explain prison congestion. As it is, the Senate version is much tougher
than present practice. It thus runs the risk of intensifying the crowding
problem and thereby prompting the premature release of truthfully sentenced
inmates. But the longer maximums make the Assembly version even riskier.

The virtue of truth-in-sentencing -- in theory, anyway -- is that it would
inject clarity into sentences. The public is frustrated with the present
practice of sentencing an offender to, say, 15 years behind bars only to
have him walk the streets in, say, five.

But to work, truth-in-sentencing must be part of a comprehensive package
that addresses the prison-crowding issue.

Hope for such a package lies with the study committee. The best course is
to pass the entire package at once. By passing truth-in-sentencing first,
the Legislature runs the risk of never developing a comprehensive package
and thus turning the no-parole measure into a joke.

In any event, Jensen's pretense that vast differences separate the Senate
and Assembly versions of truth-in-sentencing is an example of how politics
drives the crime issue.