SENTENCING REFORM OFFERS A SENSIBLE REMEDY

Lawmakers are studying a set of proposals to bring order and sense to
Alabama sentencing procedures.

We hope the proposals find favor with the lawmakers, for they would address
a situation that makes no sense at all.

In short, this is it: Alabama does not have enough revenue to operate its
Department of Corrections. Prisons are overflowing with inmates. There is a
chronic shortage of guards. Facilities are deteriorating, posing health and
safety hazards for the communities in which they are situated. And there is
not enough money to build more prisons.

Yet the state's rate of incarceration is the fifth highest in the nation.
Too often, we make no distinction between cold-blooded murderers and drug
abusers. We pack them all off to prison.

More people go to prison for drug possession, in fact, than they do for
murder, rape, robbery and manslaughter combined. None of the five top
reasons for which inmates are incarcerated in Alabama involves a violent crime.

We're all for punishing offenders, but the state has reached and passed a
breaking point. Gov. Riley's desperate attempt to deal with the relentless
inmate overflow -- speeding paroles for non-violent offenders -- has
crashed and burned. Though hundreds of inmates have been released, prisons
remain jammed. Complaining that some criminals were released who should
have stayed in jail, legislators are considering dismantling the program.

Again, it doesn't make sense.

But consider the alternative before the lawmakers.

Called Sentencing Standards, it would inaugurate a point system based on
the current offense and criminal history of the convict. It would cover 26
crimes and determine who goes to prison (someone with eight points or more)
and who is a good candidate for alternative sentencing.

The standards would send fewer non-violent offenders to prison while
offering more effective ways of dealing with drug-related crimes, including
treatment programs for offenders.

While it would be voluntary for judges, the proposed system also could
bring some order to what is now a sentencing disparity bordering on chaos
if it is widely adopted. Instead of seeing an inmate sentenced to 10 years
for a drug crime in one county and another meted 18 months for the same
crime in another, the proposed new system would offer a logical uniformity.

Some critics say uniformity is needed as well to end racial disparities in
sentencing. White men, for example, are much more likely to be convicted of
felony DUI. Black men, however, account for 59 percent of the people
imprisoned for marijuana possession in Alabama.

There is yet another potential benefit that Sentencing Standards offers. It
would require convicts to serve their full sentences without getting early
parole.

This concept -- truth in sentencing -- has been a goal of the state law
enforcement community for years. Given the state's dire corrections
situation, it's an idea whose time has come.