SENTENCING REFORM THROUGH BUDGET CRISIS:

Washington State Passes Early Release Bill

Even as the US prison population edged over the two-million mark last
year, driven by two decades of harsh anti-crime legislation and drug
war hysteria, bleak economic realities at statehouses across the
country have begun exerting a significant counter-pressure. With state
budgets in the worst shape since the Great Depression, more and more
states are finding they simply cannot afford to imprison
ever-increasing numbers of their citizens. Last week, Washington State
became the latest to begin to reverse harsh sentencing policies
because the treasury is empty.

Legislators there passed Senate Bill 5990, an act that will increase
the speed with which certain categories of offenders can win early
release. Under the bill, backed by Gov. Gary Locke (D) and passed by
overwhelming margins in both chambers, almost a thousand Washington
state prisoners, including many drug offenders, will walk out of
prison early, and more inmates will get out more quickly in the future.

The state had already passed sentencing reform legislation last year,
set to go into effect in 2004, but SB 5990 moves that change up a year.

"It's the budget," said Roger Goodman, director of the King County Bar
Association's Drug Policy Project and a key player in an innovative
reform effort that has drawn state and local health and legal
professional groups into an increasingly successful effort to reform
the state's drug laws. "We were in on various meetings, but getting
this bill passed didn't require a lot of coalition-building or frantic
testimony," he told DRCNet. "We have one of the worst budget deficits
in the country. With anti-tax sentiment running high here, all the
governor could do was propose cuts, and the Republican-controlled
Senate cheerfully endorsed his prison proposal."

The state will save about $34 million next year alone by enacting SB
5990, according to state legislative analysts, and more than 900
current prisoners will walk free early.

The bill's features include:

An increase in earned early release eligibility from 33% to 50% of
time sentenced for all current prisoners convicted of nonviolent,
non-sex offenses who have no history of violent or sex offenses --
mostly drug offenders and property offenders. The increase does not
apply to prisoners convicted of domestic violence, residential
burglary, meth manufacture or drug sales to minors, nor to prisoners
considered "high risk" despite the nature of their charges.

An increase in earned early release eligibility from 33% to 50% of
time sentenced for those convicted after July 1 of nonviolent, non-sex
offenses who have no history of violent or sex offenses. The same
eligibility restrictions as above apply.

A decrease in earned early release eligibility from 15% to 10% of time
sentenced for all serious violent offenses and sex offenses.

Moving up the effective date of the new drug sentencing grid up by one
year, to July 1, 2003, so there will be vastly expanded judicial
discretion and more treatment-oriented sentencing for drug offenses
committed on or after that date.

A funding increase for the Criminal Justice Treatment Fund, for
court-supervised drug treatment at the county level -- in other words,
drug courts. Funds will rise from $8.25 million last year to $8.9
million this year.

A study of the effects of these changes on the recidivism rate, to be
conducted by the Washington State Institute for Public Policy and
completed by 2008.

A sunset provision set for 2010.

Goodman acknowledged that leaving drug treatment within the criminal
justice system, as the drug court system does, is not the most
desirable outcome, but counseled pragmatic patience. "Reform is always
two steps forward, one step back," he said, "but now this whole idea
of treatment over incarceration has been mainstreamed. It's no longer
radical. The next step is government regulation of drugs instead of
government regulation of human behavior. That's much more radical."

While legislators may not be ready to embrace radical notions of
personal autonomy, evidence from across the country suggests they are
now desperately searching for some means to reduce their grossly
swollen prison budgets. And while moves such as reducing inmate
programs or facilities can marginally reduce costs, the one proven way
to do so is to reduce the number of people in prison.

And the states are acting. In the last two years, Indiana and
Louisiana have repealed some of their stiffer sentencing laws for drug
crimes and other nonviolent offenses, while Ohio, Illinois, Michigan
and Massachusetts have shut down prisons. Kentucky released several
hundred prisoners early, and when scandal forced an end to that
program, state officials there changed parole standards to release
prisoners earlier. Texas officials have ordered parole officers to
reduce the number of returned parole violators. And sentencing
commissions from Kansas and Oklahoma to Alabama and South Carolina
have recommended or will recommend sentencing changes to reduce prison
populations. In all of these cases, nonviolent drug offenders are or
will be prime benefactors.

As shown last week in Washington State, the fiscal crisis of the
states presents opportunities for reformers who couldn't get
legislators' attention when appealing for social justice. Severe
fiscal distress appears to be a remedy for drug war incarceration
mania. Rock-ribbed conservatives who could listen to a hundred drug
war POW horror stories without batting an eye can become reform allies
when their wallets are at stake.

For SB 5990's final bill report and complete text,
visit:

http://www.leg.wa.gov/pub/billinfo/2003-04/Senate/5975-5999/5990-s_fbr.pdf
and http://www.leg.wa.gov/pub/billinfo/2003-04/Senate/5975-5999/5990-s_pl.pdf