Martin: Lawmakers could leave positive legacy
This legislature could imprint upon itself a positive legacy and save the taxpay-ers hundreds of millions of dollars by adopting new sentencing guidelines that would reverse the current practice of locking up non-violent offenders with overly excessive sentences.
The simple fact is if some-thing isn’t done the state will have to go in debt for at least two new prison facilities. Nonviolent offenders now make up nearly half of the state prison system’s 30,000 inmates. Our rate of putting people in prison is the fourth high-est in the country. In 1977 there were 5,547 state inmates. This past Sunday there were 30,494. The num-ber of inmates has grown by more than 15 percent over the past 10 years, yet putting people behind bars hasn’t made a dent in criminal activity and the costs for Alabama’s Department of Corrections has nearly dou-bled in the past 10 years to $573 million. This comes at a time when many other vital state services are being cut. While the state’s crime rate dropped 4 percent from 1999 to 2009, the national crime rate during that same time fell 19 percent. That’s not acceptable.State Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb has taken the lead in pushing for the new sen-tencing guidelines. Alabama cannot afford the cost of doing nothing, she says, add-ing that “the state prison sys-tem is packed to almost twice its intended capacity, and projections show that unless we act now, the state will have to create room for another 1,500 inmates over the next five years at a cost of up to $151 million.”Cobb offers the following example in making her case for the package of bills: Ten years ago, New York and Florida each had 70,000 inmates in prison. New York began a push for community corrections and sentencing reform, she said. Over the next decade, New York’s prison population fell below 60,000 while Florida now has more than 100,000 peo-ple behind bars. Here’s the clincher: New York’s crime rate actually dropped more than Florida’s during that time, even though Florida was locking up far more criminals.It is my opinion that Cobb won’t seek re-election in 2014 and success with this plan would likewise leave the chief justice with a posi-tive legacy after her many years of judicial service. If nothing else, the cost savings in these prorated times should be enough of an incentive to act.The package before the legislature would go a long way toward improving our corrections system. The pro-posals are smart on crime. I hope the legislature will also leave itself a positive legacy.False alarmWhew, we made it through another doomsday predic-tion, this one by Harold Camping, an 89-year-old civil engineer who has creat-ed a multi-million-dollar ministry with his apocalyp-tic prophesies.I don’t believe many read-ers of this column took seri-ously the prediction that the world would end last Saturday beginning a 6 p.m. in New Zealand with the death and destruction con-tinuing as it followed the sun into the other time zones.But many folks did take seriously Camping’s message that 200 million people would be saved, and those left behind would die in earthquakes, plagues and other calamities until Earth would be consumed by a fireball on October 21. This prediction circulated world-wide over the web and main-stream media. Some closeted themselves to pray as they waited. Others met with family and friends to make preparations and turned to the Bible for guidance. Some partied and some, like me, actually forgot about it.Next time somebody for prank, publicity, profit or otherwise pulls one of these stunts, pull your Bible off the shelf and turn to the words of Jesus as written in Matthew chapter 24 and verses 35-36, of the King James version: “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.” Then continue with your normal activities.Bob Martin is editor and publisher of The Montgomery Independent. Email him at: [email protected].
