11. December 2009 by Rev Young.

This is the last article in my rapid fire series today.  This one deals with the issue of direct file, the practice of determining to prosecute a juvenile in adult court with adult consequences.  This law and option, in the state of Colorado, is used at the sole discretion of the District Attorney’s office.  As you will see, when you read the article, the District Attorney’s office claims to use it sparingly and with much deliberation before deciding to direct file on a juvenile. 

I am going to present some personal testimony.  The DA asks (in this article) if we have ever sat in on a  conference where this decision is made.  Of course not.  We are not aloud.  Nor is anyone, for that matter.  There are no school records, parents, doctors, priests, judges, friends or anyone else aloud to sit in on this conference.  The debate and decision is among a group of district attorneys without any background or knowledge of the juvenile who’s life they are discussing.

The decision to direct file on my son was made in 24 hours.  They did not know or speak to us (his parents), they did not have his school records and they had not spoken with his school.  They did not know if he attended church, had any medical issues, if he had extended family, as a matter of fact they did not even know if he had siblings.  They knew nothing about him.  The only thing they did know is that he had no prior criminal record.  They did not discuss any other factors….and then rendered their decision……behind closed doors……with no accountability or oversight……that’s how it works.

Read on…..

Opponents of trying juveniles as adults say judges, not prosecutors, should be responsible for deciding how to prosecute children.

The Colorado-based Pendulum Foundation is bolstered by a recent poll of Colorado voters that found that by a margin of nearly three to one, voters believe that judges should decide how to prosecute children. 

The Ridder Braden, Inc. poll released on Nov. 6 found that more than 65 percent of Colorado voters favor leaving the decision about how to try juveniles up to a judge.

“Our system is supposed to be based on the rule of law. The bottom line is that we need an impartial person charged with protecting the public and the rehabilitation of juveniles to make decisions that will affect kids for the rest of their lives,” said Mary Ellen Johnson, executive director of Pendulum Juvenile Justice.

But prosecutors say they closely examine all cases, including those involving juveniles, and argue that they have the prosecutorial tools necessary to make an appropriate filing decision.

“We exercise the discretion given to us extremely thoughtfully and carefully as indicated by the very low number of those cases charged as adults,” said Ted Tow, executive director of the Colorado District Attorneys Council.

A bill filed last year by Sen. Brandon Shaffer of Longmont and Rep. Claire Levy of Boulder, both Democrats, would have prevented district attorneys from filing adult charges against 14- and 15-year-olds. But the legislation failed when Gov. Bill Ritter, a former prosecutor, vetoed the legislation.

The Pendulum Foundation says it will push for similar legislation again.

Prosecutors in 1993 were given the authority to determine how to prosecute children as young as 14 after a summer of gang violence.

State legislation this year signed into law by the governor expanded eligibility for sentencing to the youthful offender system to 18- and 19-year-olds. The Pendulum Foundation said the law is a step in the right direction, but said much work still needs to be done.

The youthful offender system is a rehabilitation program used instead of prison for certain crimes committed by juveniles.

In 2006, Colorado lawmakers lowered life without parole sentences for juveniles to 40 years before the possibility of parole. But the law is not retroactive, and Johnson says it also does not go far enough.

She points out that there are hundreds of young men and women serving decades and life sentences in Colorado prisons.

“There are no checks and balances and no hearing before a judge,” said Johnson. “Prosecutors generally make decisions about whether to ‘direct file’ children within 72 hours.”

Opponents of that system say there is not enough time for prosecutors to review all the facts.

“District attorneys are not impartial judges,” said Johnson. “They often have a political interest in prosecuting kids as adults.”

But Tow says prosecutors examine juvenile cases the same way they do all other cases Ń carefully by examining all evidence.

“How many conferences have they actually sat in to watch the DA make the decision?” Tow asks of his critics. “I would submit none.”

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11. December 2009 by Rev Young.

There has been discussion of and argument over sentencing reform in the state of Colorado.  While one side declares that this reform is necessary to reduce the exorbitant department of corrections budget, the other side says that it is soft on crime.

It is time we stopped using that tired rhetoric as a weapon against any legislator who is trying to bring change to our broken and useless criminal justice system. 

Our tough on crime legislation, zero tolerance policies and strong arm tactics have not reduced crime.  Our sentencing practices, long prison sentences and decreased focus on rehabilitation have not strengthened our communities and made them a better place to live.  I would ask of our legislators, who stand on tough on crime policies, why they continue this rhetoric?  What do you stand to gain from it? 

The only results that we have seen from this policy charade is a significant increase in the department of corrections budget, prisons dotting our country side and our communities left in ruins.  If the practices of the last 20 years, were good for our communities, we would be experiencing the fruit of those decisions. 

This is not about Republican or Democratic parties.  This is not about tough on crime versus soft on crime.  This is not about politics at all……it is about the strength and success of our communities and we are only as strong as the least among us.  Read on…..

Will Colorado Republicans Show Fiscal Leadership On Prison Spending?

Republicans often claim to be the party of fiscal conservatism and limited government. But Republican lawmakers in Colorado show little enthusiasm for applying those principles to Colorado’s hugely expensive prison bureaucracy. So when sentencing reform bills pop up in the next legislative session, it will be an excellent opportunity for Republicans to show if they really are the party of fiscal discipline, or if they are going to leave the heavy lifting to the Democrat majority.

In 1985, the Colorado Legislature arbitrarily doubled the maximum penalties in Colorado’s presumptive sentencing range for all levels (and all types) of felony crimes. Colorado’s inmate population more than doubled in the next five years. It has more than doubled again since, growing at a rate significantly faster than the state’s overall population.

Along the way, lawmakers have continued to enact numerous new laws which have created new sentencing enhancements, and even new crimes, often with less than clear public safety benefit.

In a desperate effort to keep pace with the capacity demands of such unprecedented prison growth, successive legislatures and governors have pushed corrections spending over the last twenty years from less than 3 percent to nearly 9 percent of the state’s general fund, or from around $97 million to over $675 million of general fund appropriation.

That’s a more than 10 percent annual compound growth rate in prison spending. In other words, for decades now, “fiscal conservatives” have been eager and active participants in one of the most extreme spending sprees in state history.

Late in the 2009 legislative session, Democratic Senator John Morse of Colorado Springs introduced Senate Bill 286, which would have kept our current very tough sentences for violent and sex crimes, while re-writing a significant portion of Colorado’s criminal code. Morse was joined by a group of liberal and progressive Democrat sponsors and prime co-sponsors including Senator Morgan Carroll of Aurora and Representatives Claire Levy of Boulder and Mike Merrifield of Colorado Springs. Dozens of other Democrats signed on to the bill.

The Republican opposition was both unified and visceral. Senate minority leader Josh Penry of Grand Junction called SB 286 “radical” and “wrong.” Senator Scott Renfroe of Greeley said the bill “caves into crime.”

And Republicans did have a point. SB 286 was far too broad, and sought to reform far too many different types of criminal statutes at one time to be allowed to become law. While sentencing reform has the potential for significant long-term cost savings to taxpayers, there can also be unintended consequences to doing too much, too quickly and all at once.

But while Republican opposition to the broader bill was justifiable, Republican resistance to taking any responsibility for decades of run-away prison spending showed through when out of the forty-plus pages and numerous statutory changes in SB 286, Republicans apparently couldn’t find a single reform they were willing to publicly support.

SB 286 was eventually pulled by Morse and re-introduced as a “guideline” for the Colorado Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice (CCJJ) to use in taking up sentencing.

While lawmakers may not like it, their ability to significantly affect the long-term growth of the prison population, and thus the corrections budget (prison spending is caseload driven), is through their prerogative to write–and re-write–the state’s sentencing and parole laws and policies.

To that end, the CCJJ has been meeting all year with the mandate to make recommendations to the legislature for reform. In November, the CCJJ overwhelmingly approved a package of drug-law reform recommendations, and more recommendations are on the way.

As the minority party in the legislature, Republicans have the option of sitting back and using Democrat-sponsored sentencing and parole reform legislation as “soft on crime” attack ammunition. This may even be an effective strategy in firing up some portion of Republican-leaning voters that believe prison spending is somehow immune to the same fiscal scrutiny as the rest of the budget. If this is the case, then Republicans will hopefully lay out their own plan to continue paying for a hugely expensive corrections system that has been eating up an ever larger share of the state’s budget for decades–and is only going to continue to do so.

But for Republicans that want to establish a legitimate reputation as principled advocates of limited government and restrained state spending, the last thing they should allow is for a small band of Democrats to school them in the hard work and tough legislative choices necessary to bring some badly needed discipline to Colorado’s profligate prison spending.

Mike Krause is Operations Director and runs the Justice Policy Initiative at the Independence Institute

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11. December 2009 by Rev Young.

I am going to do a rapid fire on recent articles that I have received.  Most of them give a glimpse into what was accomplished this year in sentencing reform, prison reform and juvenile justice reform.  

We began this year with high hopes and placed high expectations on our efforts.   At the end of the year……we are still facing the same giants.  Read on….. 

 Run-on sentencing 

State reformers struggle to find momentum, even as incarceration costs handcuff the budget

by Anthony Lane

click to enlarge

• The state estimates that it costs nearly $29,000 a year to house each prisoner.

It took a single legislative amendment in 1985 to double the prison sentences for Colorado felons. Other laws created “mandatory minimums” for certain crimes or stiffened penalties for the ones thought to show “extraordinary risk.”

Going the opposite direction hasn’t been as easy, even with prison costs helping to crush the state budget. Last spring, legislators balked at a wide-ranging proposal to cut sentences for many nonviolent crimes, instead passing a law requiring the Colorado Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice to examine the matter.

But the 27-member group’s report, released in late November, only recommends minor changes to sentencing for drunk driving or escaping from detention. On Friday, Dec. 11, the panel will vote on recommending other possible changes to drug sentencing laws, including separating the crime of simply possessing a few grams of a drug from the one of getting ready to sell it.

Regardless, don’t expect big headlines from the group’s work. Doug Wilson, the state’s public defender and a commission member, sounds a wry note of frustration when asked to talk about its progress so far.

“Hold on a minute,” he says when reached by phone Monday, coming back moments later with an explanation: “I had to roll my eyes.”

In the commission’s 96-page report, which was greeted with deafening silence, the most notable recommendation could be this: People convicted of simple charges who walk away from halfway houses and the like should not be treated as harshly as the handful who actually escape from jails and prisons.

As for what to do with extraordinary-risk crimes and other mandatory sentencing requirements? Two words: “Further study.”

“As far as I can tell,” Wilson says, “we’ve addressed some low-hanging fruit.”

Sen. John Morse, D-Colorado Springs, co-sponsored last session’s proposal to shorten sentences, and is one of four legislators on the commission. He says reform is essential — “there’s no evidence that longer sentences protect public safety at all,” he says — and sees the commission’s work, slow as it may be, as the best way to achieve it.

Rep. Mark Waller, a Colorado Springs Republican who recently joined Morse and Co., says he thinks the commission is making “a real attempt to reduce sentences.” That could be useful for nonviolent drug offenders, he adds, but he’s still waiting to hear what alternatives to prison could help them recover.

And that’s what Wilson calls the “ultimate Catch-22″: Prisons cost a fortune to run, but they’re judges’ main option for sentencing. Developing treatment and job programs might ultimately save money, but there’s no cash to get them started.

The bill Morse sponsored this year, which Wilson backed, was supposed to solve that problem. It proposed using some money saved by shortened sentences to pay for programs aimed at reducing the number of people getting out of prison only to go right back.

Current proposals are less ambitious. One, supported by Waller, would eliminate a mandatory five-day jail sentence for anyone caught driving with a suspended license. (It wouldn’t touch the stiffer penalties for those whose licenses were suspended for drunken driving.)

Wilson says he’s heard grumbles that even this idea could be argued over at Friday’s meeting, as could proposals for changing drug sentencing laws. He offers a grim prediction: “It’s going to be a big pissing match.”

— lane@csindy.com

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