BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - Gov. John Bel Edwards has reached some common ground with Louisiana’s sheriffs and district attorneys in his push to decrease the state’s highest-in-the-nation incarceration rate and save millions of dollars each year.
A package of bills aimed at reducing the prison population received backing Tuesday from a Senate judiciary committee.
But before they passed unopposed to the Senate floor, the proposals were heavily amended to reduce opposition from sheriffs and district attorneys, who refuse to cede much ground on lessening the punishments for violent crimes.
The Democratic governor appeared before the committee to argue in favor of overhauling some current sentencing laws, which he called too “tough” on both inmates and taxpayers. The proposed bills expand opportunities for probation and parole and shrink sentences for some offenders, mainly those jailed for non-violent crimes.
“Our guiding principle is that all of these changes are potentially good, but for non-violent offenders only,” said Pete Adams, executive director of the Louisiana District Attorney’s Association, explaining how prosecutors have approached negotiations with lawmakers and Edwards’ office.
The bills came after a criminal justice task force recently put forward proposals to lessen the state’s prison population by 13 percent, saying that would save an estimated $151 million over the next decade. About 0.81 percent of the state’s population is behind bars - nearly double the nationwide rate.
Sen. Danny Martiny’s bill, the most detailed of the three before the committee, had initially called for allowing convicted second-degree murderers serving mandatory life sentences to be eligible for parole after 30 years. District attorneys were successful in striking down most of that clause. Under the revised bill, the parole board would only hear the cases of a set of inmates who had been sentenced in the 1970s and had been declared eligible for parole back then.
Proponents of so-called “geriatric release” have argued that these offenders have reformed and, with many in deteriorating health and needing expensive medical care, constitute a drain on the state’s coffers.
To lessen inmate medical costs for the Louisiana Department of Corrections, the bill proposes releasing some especially ill inmates on furlough. Since they would no longer be technically incarcerated, the offenders would be able to have 90 percent of their medical bills paid by the federal government through the Medicaid program. The state would be responsible for the remaining 10 percent.
Facing opposition from district attorneys, Edwards scrapped an effort to create a felony class system that groups together hundreds of crimes, with clear sentencing ranges and eligibility criteria for prison alternatives. Supporters said that would end wide disparity in sentences, but district attorneys said the issue needs more study. The bill now calls on a task force to review it.
With so many changes made since the bills were first proposed, some members of the public found themselves passionately testifying against a measure they had been in attendance to support.
Sibil Richardson said her husband has served nearly 20 years of a 60-year sentence for an armed robbery the two carried out. Robert Richardson is not eligible for parole for another 25 years, even though no one was seriously injured, she said.
“The people who (cannot be rehabilitated) are such a small fraction of the people that are locked behind our bars,” said Sibil Richardson, who served more than a decade in prison. “This bill will not guarantee that my husband will come home, but it will guarantee that he will be heard, and that is all we are asking. We committed a violent act, but we are not violent people.”
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Senate Bills 139, 220 and 221: www.legis.la.gov
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