SUPPLY SENTENCING COMMISSION'S NEEDS

When the Alabama Sentencing Commission issued its initial report to the
Legislature earlier this month, it was cause for a little disappointment.
The commission needs more money and more information before it can make
recommendations.

But there is cause for optimism too, because the commission wants thorough
information to analyze before recommending changes of law.

The commission asked the lawmakers for funding and for legislation to allow
it access to confidential offender information for research purposes. The
commission wants to develop an offender population data base and create a
simulation model to project the effect changes in sentencing laws will have
on the prison population.

The commission is charged with finding ways to make Alabama's sentencing
practices fairer - not only to ensure that defendants convicted of similar
crimes get similar sentences but to make the sentence handed down reflects
the sentence the defendant should serve. As it stands, "good time" credits
and discretionary parole reduce most sentences, the report says, "making
the length of incarceration indeterminate and, in many cases,
incomprehensible."

"Truth-in-sentencing" is under review, but the commission reports that it
cannot make recommendations without the kind of data that will allow
analysis of the impact of any proposals. Without that kind of analysis,
Alabama might as well leave its sentencing laws alone.

Too often in the past lawmakers have passed provisions to get tougher on
crime with no way of calculating how it would affect the prison population.
It has led to overcrowded prisons and state inmates being left in county
jails long after they've been sentenced to the state system.

The commission's report stresses the need for information to be analyzed,
looking for disparities in sentencing and how some sentencing enhancements
have been used. Its efforts will include review of the existing
community-based punishment programs and how they can be used to house some
inmates more economically, reserving prison space for offenders who most
need incarceration.

The trend for years has been to sentence longer, but not necessarily
smarter. Legislators need to give the sentencing commission the funding and
the confidential information it needs to find effective ways to buck that
trend with better sentencing laws.