A House committee has scheduled a hearing later today on a bill that could shorten the prison stays of hundreds of local inmates.
The measure seeks to change the state law that requires inmates serve mandatory minimum sentences.
New Hampshire Public Radio's Josh Rogers reports.
Proponents of repealing NH?s truth in sentencing law say doing so would achieve two goals:
It would improve the lot of prisoners, and cut corrections costs.??Hancock republican Ted Leach is the measures lead sponsor?.He says allowing well-behaved prisoners to reduce their minimum sentences by a third would leave more than 3 million dollars to be earmarked for inmate rehabilitation.
?Our population in the last 20 years has grown 35 percent. Our prison population has grown 600 percent. It just doesn?t make any sense. So I think we need to find that delicate balance between ? on one side people saying people ought to serve their maximum sentence, and on the other side saying our system is broke and we need to fix it.?
Finding that balance is not likely to be easy?..even among people who agree the prison system needs to improve.
In order to have confidence in the system, I believe the sentence that?s imposes ought to be the sentence that?s actually served.
That?s former house speaker Donna Sytek. Sytek pushed for NH?s truth in sentencing law in the 1980s. She?s also a firm believer that corrections should expand it?s vocational and substance abuse treatment programs ? and convinced such goals are attainable within correction?s current budget.
You can manage you population and achieve the public confidence that the 95 percent of the people who will be returned to the community one day will be better likely to succeed than if we just lock them up and do nothing.
But whether or not corrections can do anything quickly remains debatable??Corrections now lacks a commissioner, and resources are strained. Under dictates from both the legislature and Governor Benson, the department must cut some 18 million dollars in spending by 2005. In response, corrections has trimmed staff, vocational offerings, and eliminated a substance abuse program for parole violators. David Welch is chairman of the house public safety committee. He notes that 85 inmates now eligible for parole remain in state custody because of a shortage in half-way house space??He concedes that needs to change. But under the circumstances, Welch says, passing a bill that could free another 475 prisoners is imprudent.
?We lack half-way houses??.we lack drug and alcohol programs??.We don?t have these things in place. What we?ve done is made it even more difficulty harder to for these people to go out and enter the public sector with the tools they need to stay out and be good citizens.?
Welch predicts the measure will end up in a study committee??.A recommendation also made recommended by Governor Benson?s efficiency commission. The bill will scheduled to go before the house criminal justice and public safety committee later today.
