Both the Mankato Free Press and the Winona Daily News have taken a look at Representative Cornish's plan to return short-term offenders with 60 days (or less) remaining on their sentences to the care and expense of county jails.
Both editorial boards suggest that something is being lost in shuffling the prisoners: a rethinking of harsh sentences and "time" itself, in favor of other approaches to crime and punishment. Neither paper asks whether such programs are slated to be funded as usual or cut in finance bills working their way through the legislature.
Editors favor "real reform"
In Shifting prison costs isn’t real reform, the Mankato Free Press urges a different approach to the costs off incarceration:
But both [the Legislature and sheriffs] should also examine the entire system to see if a “throw away the key” mentality is filling jails and prisons with non-violent offenders who would have a better chance of rehabilitation in a half-way house or other facility.
If the state wants to shift more of the cost to the county jails, the state should consider removing several unfunded mandates sheriffs and jails must put up with.
Instead of this issue being about who pays higher and higher costs, it should be how we can equitably assess costs that we can somehow lower through sensible reforms that maintain public safety but also protect the public’s pocketbook.
In behalf of the Winona Daily News board, editor Darrell Ehrlick writes in Maybe, solution isn’t jail or prison:
Many Minnesota sheriffs across the state aren’t real happy with Rep. Tony Cornish, R- Good Thunder.
One of his latest proposals includes sending any state prisoner with less than a 60-day sentence back to county jails to serve time. . . .
. . .Counties are pretty much powerless to fight such a measure, if other lawmakers hop aboard.
This, in a nutshell, is a game the Legislature has played for a few decades. It’s the fundamental problem that has the state shifting all its burdens to the county or city level, meanwhile sending little or no money along, and hobbling them by putting limits on local property taxes.
In other words, in a fight between the counties and the state, the state will always win. . .
. . .Instead, we wonder if Cornish’s legislation isn’t also another subtle endorsement of the good work that’s being done by our criminal justice coordinating committee that is considering other alternatives to sentencing and crime than just prison or jails.
Will legislature fund real reform?
Here's where the WDN's argument gets interesting--and where I wonder if the paper could have looked just a bit deeper into the omnibus bills for public safety and judiciary finance to see how programs like the criminal justice coordinating committee fare in the time of budget cuts.
If the bills cut funding to such efforts, perhaps what seems to be a subtle endorsement is simply an illusion.
Ehrlick continues:
Instead of handing out weak or anemic sentences, maybe it’s time to quit with the sentencing part and focus on the behaviors that led someone to commit the crime in the first place.
So much of the lower-grade criminal courts are packed with people who have learning disabilities, psychiatric illnesses and drug use. . . .
. . .Shouldn’t we be locking up those who truly are dangerous, and figuring out how to help the rest?
This seems like common sense, although as a nation, we rejected this reasoning several decades ago when states moved toward harsher sentencing.
So, how are programs designed to address learning disabilities, psychiatric illnesses and drug use faring?
Much of the attention to cuts in the bill focused on the severe slices made to the Minnesota Department of Human Rights budget; in the House bill, the department loses 50 percent of its funding, PIM's Paul Demko reported.
Are pieces of reform seeing cuts?
But Scott Russell at Minnesota Budget Bites (a multi-author blog published by the Minnesota Council on Nonprofits) looked beyond that rancorous debate in Legislature’s public safety budgets focus cuts on vulnerable Minnesotans:
Compared to other areas of the state budget, it appears the court system and public safety services fare well in the budget bills presented by the Governor, House and Senate. However, a little digging reveals some harmful cuts within the House and Senate proposals that will negatively impact access to legal representation and crime prevention services (both the House and Senate are now both working off of Senate File 958). [BSP note: this is the judiciary finance bill; the House version is authored by Smith and Cornish]
The House, Senate and Governor all propose increasing funding for the Department of Corrections by $27 million to partially restore a cut to core prison operations that was made in the 2010 Legislative Session. However, the House and Senate must turn to cuts in other areas of public safety - including services for children, youth and other vulnerable populations - to meet their budget targets.
And some of those programs relate to the areas Ehrlick delineated:
Prevention services. Office of Justice programs within the Department of Public Safety work on crime prevention, crime victim assistance and improvements to the justice system. The House cuts funding for these programs by 17 percent in FY 2012-13, [emphasis added] limiting cuts to battered women programs to a maximum of 11 percent. The Senate cuts funding by five percent in FY 2012-13, including eliminating grants for youth and community crime prevention. The Governor proposes essentially flat funding for these services in the FY 2012-13 biennium, although he recommends $3 million in one-time funding for Network for Better Futures to complete a pilot program that provides housing, employment and other supports to men at high risk of entry or re-entry into corrections or chemical or mental health programs (the House and Senate do not fund this pilot program).[emphasis added]
Other initiatives. The House plans to achieve $17 million in savings in public safety in FY 2012-13 by cutting back on management and reducing inmate medical per diems. . . .[emphasis added] . . .Other initiatives in the House bill include moving offenders with 60 days or less on their prison sentences to county facilities, which shifts these costs to the county level, and charging inmates a copayment for health care visits.
In Recent budget bills offer cause for concern, Rep. Alice Hausman (DFL-66B) notes one such concern:
With deep cuts to the Public Safety budget, the Department of Corrections will see changes in their ability to offer programs that reduce recidivism in our communities, like chemical dependency treatment and community supervision. . . .Furthermore, there are particularly painful cuts to . . . crime prevention programs like youth intervention services.
It appears that programs designed to "focus on the behaviors that led someone to commit the crime in the first place" are indeed facing the axe.
The truth is that such programs cost money, at least in the short term, and with the revenue crunch the state is facing--and the unwillingness of the Republican Party to ask for a single dime of added revenue (the professional sports industry and its fans excluded), there's no movement in the legislature to fund them.
And editors discerning glimmer of such hopes in Cornish's public safety agenda of one provision (sending prisoners to county jails when they have 60 days remaining on their sentences) might need to look at the larger finance bills for public safety and judiciary finance bill to see if those hopes are validated.
One final note. Ehrlick specifically mentions the Winona County Criminal Justice Coordinating Council in the WDN editorial. It runs effective diversion programs. How will those diversion programs--and the services they rely on--be affected? The WDN has some very good reporters on staff, as does the MFP. It's worth looking into to see how these programs would do.
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