Retired Scottsdale, Ariz., police veteran Gary Nelson tells the story of a couple who, feeling unsafe in their neighborhood, purchased a guard dog.
One day the dog suddenly turned on the couple's young daughter, mauling her severely.
"Ironically, the very thing that they hoped would protect them, proved to be a far worse threat than any criminal," Nelson wrote recently in the Scottsdale Republic.
Nelson didn't relate that story as a cautionary tale about aggressive dogs. The self-described political conservative used it as a metaphor for what's happened with crime and punishment and its effect on both the public purse and public safety over 30 years.
Overly onerous, sometimes unfair, drug laws have overburdened federal and state prisons and cost the taxpayer, all in the name of public safety.
Nelson's conclusion, in so many words, is: Why get a vicious dog when adequate protection can be provided with a sturdy deadbolt?
Crime and punishment
A long list of conservatives, including anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, have been pushing for sentencing reforms, cutting sentences and reducing prison populations, with no sacrifice, they say, to public safety. Support from other influential conservatives, including tea party favorites U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, R- Utah, has come about in part because of the huge reduction in costs reforms would generate at both the federal and state level.
Their idea was embraced last month by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who supports reforms abolishing mandatory minimum sentences, which are responsible for putting so many nonviolent offenders behind bars.
The level of incarceration in the U.S. is the highest in the free world, with the number of people behind bars greater than the combined populations of Boston, San Francisco, Denver and Orlando.
The reality
Look around, roughly one in every 12 Oklahomans has a criminal record; nationally, one in every 31 people in the U.S. is under correctional supervision, in prison, on parole or on probation. Oklahoma has the fourth highest incarceration rate per capita in the nation and consistently has topped the country in per-capita incarceration of women. More than 25,000 inmates are behind bars, many of them for nonviolent offenses that primarily include drug crimes. State prisons have hovered at capacity or over capacity for years.
Sustaining these enormous prison populations is consuming more taxpayer dollars each year. Spending these dollars is justified if that is the only way to safeguard public safety. But alternatives to incarceration - house arrest, treatment, community supervision, work requirements and drug testing - for some inmates has not jeopardized public safety and actually has reduced offender recidivism.
Since 1980, the number of Americans incarcerated has increased 400 percent. The federal prison system is operating at nearly 40 percent over capacity, costing taxpayers as much as $80 billion a year. Officials attribute that in part to sentencing guidelines for drug offenses that with mandatory minimum sentences give little latitude or discretion to how judges sentence offenders - a one-size-fits-all approach.
No good reason
"Too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long, and for no good law enforcement reason," Holder said. "While the aggressive enforcement of federal criminal statutes remains necessary, we cannot simply prosecute or incarcerate our way to become a safer nation."
Under the new Department of Justice policy, which Northern District U.S. Attorney Danny Williams put into place last week, federal prosecutors no longer will seek mandatory minimum sentences for many low-level, nonviolent drug offenders.
This is not a get-soft-on-crime approach. It's a smart-on-crime solution. The centerpiece of the new approach is to scale back prosecution for certain drug offenders - those with no ties to large-scale organizations, gangs or cartels.
Various Oklahoma policymakers, on the left, and more recently on the right, have pushed for a more rational sentencing structure that punished those lawbreakers who the public legitimately fears and not just those the public is mad at - more low-level offenders who possessed or sold small amounts of drugs.
Low low-level nonviolent offenders still would be punished but in less costly ways than putting them in a $25,000-a-year prison cell.
Oklahoma's plan
Two years ago, under the leadership of Republican House Speaker Kris Steele, lawmakers passed the Justice Reinvestment Initiative. JRI offered the chance for Oklahoma to accomplish what Texas already has done - reduce prison populations, cut costs, use alternatives to incarceration for some inmates - all without jeopardizing public safety.
The Legislature funded the first year of JRI. Then, leadership changed and the initiative has received only tepid support since.
Meanwhile, Texas has reduced its prison population by 5,000 inmates and closed a prison.
Without changes at both the state and federal levels, over-incarceration will continue, draining scarce resources and doing little to reduce recidivism. The current model is broken. "It's ineffective and unsustainable," Holder said, with human and moral costs that are impossible to calculate."
By reserving the most severe penalties for serious, high-level or violent drug traffickers, the system can more effectively promote public safety, deterrence and rehabilitation.
Grover Norquist and Newt Gingrich seldom find common ground, much less share talking points, with Eric Holder and Barack Obama. But on the need for rational sentencing reform they stand united. Congress should listen.
Julie DelCour, 918-581-8379
julie.delcour@tulsaworld.com
Julie Delcour
Someday Veronica Capobianco or Veronica Brown - whomever a judge eventually decides she is - will encounter the legacy of Oklahoma native son Jim Thorpe: football legend, Olympian and the Zeus of 20th-century American athletes.
When it comes to one of Oklahomans' top concerns, public safety, the Oklahoma Legislature is all shot and no powder.
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