Record-Journal
09-12-2007, 02:03 AM
HARTFORD -- Change was in the air Tuesday as lawmakers considered ways to change the state’s criminal justice system to get tougher on repeat offenders.
Experts from out of state told members of the Judiciary Committee how their states have managed to crackdown on career criminals, make prisoner files accessible between agencies and ultimately help convicts re-enter society.
The committee and a task force formed by Gov. M. Jodi Rell will review the information, assess the current system and propose improvements.
“This is the first of our hearings,” said Sen. Andrew McDonald, D-Stamford, co-chairman of the committee. “Our goal is to enhance the system, not just moving pieces around and making ourselves feel good about it.”
The hearing came less than two months after the death of a woman and her two daughters in Cheshire after two men broke into their home and held the family hostage.
The men accused in the killings, Joshua Komisarjevsky, 26, and Steven Hayes, 44, were repeat offenders, although neither would have been eligible for mandatory sentencing under proposed “three-strikes and you’re out” laws.
Still, Republicans have pressed to toughen the state’s persistent offender law, something Democrats, who control the General Assembly, are considering.
On Tuesday, James P. Fox, district attorney for California’s San Mateo County, near San Francisco, told the committee of the success, and pressure, caused by his state’s “three strikes” law.
Career criminals are being locked up for 25 years or more, but the prison population has also swelled to capacity, and California is poised to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on new prison construction.
“We have targeted people who were already doing life in prison,” Fox said, via videoconferencing.
“Unfortunately, they were doing it on the installment plan. With the ‘three strikes’ law, we are able to address those people who constitute a serious threat to public safety.”
Fox believes the law works, but cautioned against passing one that is too rigid.
In California, the law didn’t get much use until the state’s Supreme Court allowed judges the discretion to reduce one of the felonies to a misdemeanor in exchange for doubling the length of the sentence, which would still be less than 25 years.
With discretion, the state still targets violent criminals for penalties of 25 years to life.
“That may be the way to go,” Rep. Mary Fritz, D-Wallingford, said after the hearing. “I do not believe (we should) be as stringent as what the Republicans are seeking to do.”
Both Republicans and Democrats grilled Pardon and Parole Board Chairman Robert Farr about why his committee didn’t have a pre-sentencing transcript for Komisarjevsky before it decided to release him on parole.
Farr, who became chairman in February, said he had met with Chief State’s Attorney Kevin T. Kane in June, before the Cheshire incident took place, to address the issue of transcripts not being transferred from the courts to the board.
The parole decisions for Komisarjevsky and Hayes, however, had already been reached, since the hearings take place about six months before a prisoner is set to be released.
The lead time is for the state to help transition the prisoner back into society.
“We had a problem with missing important information,” said Farr, who also is working to collect police reports and court transcripts. “We are addressing that problem, and now we’ve accelerated the solution to that problem.”
The state has appropriated money to assess the need for information technology improvements at some of the agencies that handle criminals, but more work and money is necessary.
Some records are still kept by hand, and there are questions about whether computer systems in the various departments can “talk” with each other.
Legislators were dumbfounded as they heard from another expert, George Keiser, about Iowa’s electronic records system, which keeps one file during an offender’s entire journey through the criminal justice process.
The single record is accessible to all agencies that deal with a prisoner before, during and after incarceration, said Keiser, who runs the community corrections and prisons division of the National Institute of Corrections, part of the U.S. Department of Justice.
The Justice Department paid the travel expenses for Keiser and Michael P. Jacobson, director of the Vera Institute of Justice.
“If you place (a man) on probation, you assess his risk,” Keiser said. “If he violates and is sent back to prison, I can pull up his file and know what his whole probation history was.”
Information systems cost money, as does building more prisons, but Jacobson urged lawmakers to consider investing in re-entry programs that help prisoners avoid falling back into crime.
Such investments have allowed New York to both reduce its rate of recidivism and its prison population, said Jacobson, who was New York City’s commissioner of corrections and head of probation during the 1990s.
“As you put more folks in prison or increase the time of prison stays, you get some public safety benefit,” he said.
“But a lot of the research will say you don’t get as much benefit as targeted in-prison and after-care programs, like more funding for successful re-entry programs in the community or dealing with sobriety and employment for people coming out of prison.”
Activist groups delivered a similar message at a press conference before the hearing.
Tougher mandatory sentences, especially those resulting from drug arrests in school zones, unfairly target urban youth, said members of A Better Way Foundation.
Instead of increasing prison time, the state should focus on rehabilitating felons so they are less likely to break the law again.
“The law-and-order mentality behind ‘three strikes’ laws, harsher sentencing and further restrictions on parole is inefficient, counterproductive and, contrary to the prevailing wisdom, at least in Connecticut these days, it will not make us safer,” said Peter Goselin, coordinator of the state chapter of the National Lawyers Guild.
Goselin urged the judiciary to invite rehabilitated felons, their families and social service providers, and clergy who work with ex-offenders to a hearing to discuss legal reforms.
But Rep. Alfred C. Adinolfi, R-Cheshire, said he supports toughening ‘three strikes’ laws and expanding them to include persistent criminals who commit minor crimes, not felonies.
“Have you ever considered recommending to the legislature something where three minor crimes equal one major one?” Adinolfi asked Chief State’s Attorney Kevin Kane during the hearing.
“Yes we have considered it, no we haven’t done it,” Kane responded. “Is it something we should consider? Yes, it’s something we should consider.”
Experts from out of state told members of the Judiciary Committee how their states have managed to crackdown on career criminals, make prisoner files accessible between agencies and ultimately help convicts re-enter society.
The committee and a task force formed by Gov. M. Jodi Rell will review the information, assess the current system and propose improvements.
“This is the first of our hearings,” said Sen. Andrew McDonald, D-Stamford, co-chairman of the committee. “Our goal is to enhance the system, not just moving pieces around and making ourselves feel good about it.”
The hearing came less than two months after the death of a woman and her two daughters in Cheshire after two men broke into their home and held the family hostage.
The men accused in the killings, Joshua Komisarjevsky, 26, and Steven Hayes, 44, were repeat offenders, although neither would have been eligible for mandatory sentencing under proposed “three-strikes and you’re out” laws.
Still, Republicans have pressed to toughen the state’s persistent offender law, something Democrats, who control the General Assembly, are considering.
On Tuesday, James P. Fox, district attorney for California’s San Mateo County, near San Francisco, told the committee of the success, and pressure, caused by his state’s “three strikes” law.
Career criminals are being locked up for 25 years or more, but the prison population has also swelled to capacity, and California is poised to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on new prison construction.
“We have targeted people who were already doing life in prison,” Fox said, via videoconferencing.
“Unfortunately, they were doing it on the installment plan. With the ‘three strikes’ law, we are able to address those people who constitute a serious threat to public safety.”
Fox believes the law works, but cautioned against passing one that is too rigid.
In California, the law didn’t get much use until the state’s Supreme Court allowed judges the discretion to reduce one of the felonies to a misdemeanor in exchange for doubling the length of the sentence, which would still be less than 25 years.
With discretion, the state still targets violent criminals for penalties of 25 years to life.
“That may be the way to go,” Rep. Mary Fritz, D-Wallingford, said after the hearing. “I do not believe (we should) be as stringent as what the Republicans are seeking to do.”
Both Republicans and Democrats grilled Pardon and Parole Board Chairman Robert Farr about why his committee didn’t have a pre-sentencing transcript for Komisarjevsky before it decided to release him on parole.
Farr, who became chairman in February, said he had met with Chief State’s Attorney Kevin T. Kane in June, before the Cheshire incident took place, to address the issue of transcripts not being transferred from the courts to the board.
The parole decisions for Komisarjevsky and Hayes, however, had already been reached, since the hearings take place about six months before a prisoner is set to be released.
The lead time is for the state to help transition the prisoner back into society.
“We had a problem with missing important information,” said Farr, who also is working to collect police reports and court transcripts. “We are addressing that problem, and now we’ve accelerated the solution to that problem.”
The state has appropriated money to assess the need for information technology improvements at some of the agencies that handle criminals, but more work and money is necessary.
Some records are still kept by hand, and there are questions about whether computer systems in the various departments can “talk” with each other.
Legislators were dumbfounded as they heard from another expert, George Keiser, about Iowa’s electronic records system, which keeps one file during an offender’s entire journey through the criminal justice process.
The single record is accessible to all agencies that deal with a prisoner before, during and after incarceration, said Keiser, who runs the community corrections and prisons division of the National Institute of Corrections, part of the U.S. Department of Justice.
The Justice Department paid the travel expenses for Keiser and Michael P. Jacobson, director of the Vera Institute of Justice.
“If you place (a man) on probation, you assess his risk,” Keiser said. “If he violates and is sent back to prison, I can pull up his file and know what his whole probation history was.”
Information systems cost money, as does building more prisons, but Jacobson urged lawmakers to consider investing in re-entry programs that help prisoners avoid falling back into crime.
Such investments have allowed New York to both reduce its rate of recidivism and its prison population, said Jacobson, who was New York City’s commissioner of corrections and head of probation during the 1990s.
“As you put more folks in prison or increase the time of prison stays, you get some public safety benefit,” he said.
“But a lot of the research will say you don’t get as much benefit as targeted in-prison and after-care programs, like more funding for successful re-entry programs in the community or dealing with sobriety and employment for people coming out of prison.”
Activist groups delivered a similar message at a press conference before the hearing.
Tougher mandatory sentences, especially those resulting from drug arrests in school zones, unfairly target urban youth, said members of A Better Way Foundation.
Instead of increasing prison time, the state should focus on rehabilitating felons so they are less likely to break the law again.
“The law-and-order mentality behind ‘three strikes’ laws, harsher sentencing and further restrictions on parole is inefficient, counterproductive and, contrary to the prevailing wisdom, at least in Connecticut these days, it will not make us safer,” said Peter Goselin, coordinator of the state chapter of the National Lawyers Guild.
Goselin urged the judiciary to invite rehabilitated felons, their families and social service providers, and clergy who work with ex-offenders to a hearing to discuss legal reforms.
But Rep. Alfred C. Adinolfi, R-Cheshire, said he supports toughening ‘three strikes’ laws and expanding them to include persistent criminals who commit minor crimes, not felonies.
“Have you ever considered recommending to the legislature something where three minor crimes equal one major one?” Adinolfi asked Chief State’s Attorney Kevin Kane during the hearing.
“Yes we have considered it, no we haven’t done it,” Kane responded. “Is it something we should consider? Yes, it’s something we should consider.”