In January of 2016, the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) published a list of the top ten issues that will be before state legislatures across the nation this year. Since Pennsylvania will close out the 2015-2016 session this fall, it’s worth a look to see what our own elected officials are doing to address each of the issues. The next topic up for consideration: Sentencing Reforms.
Meaningful sentencing reform can become a touchy subject, in the Commonwealth and nationwide. The issue pits the need and will to be tough on crime against the demands to reduce the ever-rising costs of incarceration. It forces lawmakers to balance the need to hold people accountable for their actions, while evaluating who might be better served by mental health or substance abuse treatment programs. It requires that all three branches of government work together in order to analyze prison populations and expenditures in order to run an efficient and effective corrections system statewide.
Through federal dollars, the Justice Reinvestment Initiative, or JRI, incentivized states to examine how they could reduce corrections populations and costs. In the 2011-2012 legislative session, Pennsylvania adopted two JRI measures in the Commonwealth. S.B. 100 (Greenleaf) established the “risk-recidivism reduction incentive,” which allows nonviolent offenders to be paroled early if they complete required programming and do not have any behavioral infractions while incarcerated. The bill also provides for a reduced re-sentencing penalty for technical parole violators, sets up safe community reentry programs and moves lower level offenders from the jurisdiction of the Department of Corrections to county jails. H.B. 135 (Sabatina, R-Philadelphia) requires that savings from these measures be calculated by the Governor’s Budget Office and be made available for grants to communities to improve the delivery of criminal justice services. Those savings wouldn’t be realized until the 2013-2014 fiscal year at the earliest, and subsequent budgets have continued to provide for these measures.
Since JRI is a relatively new initiative, and because it’s difficult to enact new laws that reduce sentences or decriminalize certain actions without looking soft on crime, the legislature and the administration still have to look for ways to at least better manage corrections costs. In Pennsylvania, two separate agencies handle offenders at different stages of serving out their sentences. While incarcerated, they are under the purview of the Department of Corrections; once released, they are overseen by the Board of Probation and Parole. In his first budget proposal in 2015, Gov. Wolf recommended consolidating the two in order to streamline treatment and caseload management and to reduce costs. Later that same year, in November of 2015, the Senate passed two bills sponsored by Sen. Stewart Greenleaf (R-Montgomery) that would do just that: S.B. 859 and S.B. 860. Those bills, which passed the Senate by a vote of 37-10, have since been sent before the House Judiciary Committee for consideration.
Despite stalled action on the legislative measures, the administration has taken steps to reduce corrections costs. Through the Governor’s Office of Transformation, Innovation, Management and Efficiency, or GO-TIME-initiative, the state has consolidated the purchase of food, supplies and other goods for smaller facilities, which is estimated to save the state $1.5 million. In conjunction with GO-TIME efforts, the Department of Corrections has also reexamined the delivery of medical treatment at prisons, allowing some services to be performed on-site or at a nearby correctional facility instead of at a health care facility.
Further action on sentencing reforms isn’t expected this fall. Session days are limited and legislators are likely to be playing beat the clock with efforts to enact bills that will die on November 30 when the session ends. However, we expect the Governor will continue his GO-TIME efforts throughout the entirety of his term. Additionally, through the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD), the Commonwealth has requested to participate in phase two of the federal JRI. A new work group has been established that includes representatives from the administration, the legislature and criminal justice agencies to examine and analyze current data to see what Pennsylvania can do next in the area of corrections cost reduction and sentencing reform. It’s possible that legislation will be necessary to implement those measures, which could be considered over the course of the next session.