Indiana lawmakers vow end to 'bumper sticker' justice

INDIANAPOLIS — Some Indiana lawmakers blame  “bumper sticker” justice for Indiana’s escalating prison population and vow to bring it to an end.

On Wednesday, those lawmakers joined Gov. Mitch Daniels in endorsing a criminal sentencing reform plan based on what Daniels called “smarter incarceration” that would save taxpayers millions.

The plan would return “proportionality” to  sentencing and give judges more discretion over  sentencing low-risk offenders to community-based programs — an option that legislators have taken away in some cases.

State Rep. Ralph Foley, R-Martinsville, said the Indiana General Assembly has engaged in “offense inflation” in recent years by creating more laws and imposing stiffer sentences without thought to fairness or long-term implications.

Foley and other legislative leaders said lawmakers too often felt pressured to take a “tough on crime” attitude — one that he said was captured on bumper stickers and poster boards, rather than evidence-based policy.

“Often the legislature acts in a reactive way,” Foley said.

“We’ve all been a party to it,” echoed state Rep. Eric Turner, R-Marion.

The result: Indiana’s prison population has grown by more than 40 percent in the last decade, three times faster than any neighboring state.

The prison population growth occurred primarily because more property and drug offenders were sentenced to prison. That’s costly, given that it takes about $21,000 a year to house an inmate in a state prison.

Those numbers are based on a comprehensive review of the state’s criminal code and sentencing policies conducted by the Pew Center on the States and the Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center.

Details of the review are scheduled to be released Thursday. But Foley, who’s been working with the Pew Center on the review, said among the things it shows is that the penalties created by the legislature don’t always fit the crime.

Larry Landis, head of the Indiana Public Defender Council, concurs. Among the examples he offers: The advisory sentence for distributing three grams of cocaine in Indiana ranges from 20 to 50 years in prison. The advisory sentence for rape is 6 years.

Landis also cited the 6,000-plus inmates in Indiana prisons who are there on Class D felonies, which are typically property crimes like theft or forgery.

At the press conference Wednesday, Daniels said too many nonviolent inmates that are at low risk for offending again are taking up prison beds that should be set aside for violent criminals.

Daniels said the Pew Center’s review has resulted in a package of legislative reforms that could save taxpayers more than $1 billion by avoiding having to build another state prison.

The sentencing reform legislation hasn’t been written yet, but its main proposals are based on the Pew Center review and include:

•  Improving proportionality in sentencing and ensure prison space for the worst offenders by creating a more precise set of drug and theft sentencing laws that would give judges more sentencing options.
•  Strengthening community supervision by focusing resources on high-risk offenders.
•  Reducing recidivism by increasing access to community-based substance abuse and mental health treatment.  

The reform package will also include a recommendation that the state provide $27 million over the next six years to improve probation,  parole, and treatment programs on the county level.