I’ve served on the Senate Judiciary and Crime Prevention Committees for 16 years. I was also a State Public Defender for almost 20 years. As a Public Defender, I represented poor people who were charged with serious crimes. I was in court a lot, and am very familiar with the Criminal Justice System.
Being a Public Defender isn’t an easy job. Most of my clients were guilty, some were innocent. But, all were entitled to the “presumption of innocence” and the right to legal counsel, under our Constitution. Because of my experience in the Criminal Justice field, I enjoy shaping public policy in this area. Keeping people safe, while respecting civil liberties, is one of the most important responsibilities of the state legislature.
There are evil people in our society, who commit very heinous acts. These criminals are not capable of rehabilitation, and need to be locked up in prison for a long time. But, most offenders are capable of returning to society without re-offending. This is why we call our prison system the Department of Corrections, rather that the State Penal System.
When I was first elected to the Senate in 1990, Minnesota had about 3000 people in state prison. We had the lowest incarceration rate in the country, next to North Dakota. Most felons received probation and/or local jail for punishment, under our Community Corrections Act.
Now we have more than 9000 inmates in State prison (see this report), and over 2200 of these offenders are in prison for drug crimes. (see this report) . This is a huge increase in the number of drug offenders, primarily due to methamphetamine addiction. (see this report).
( A significant part of the 2004 Omnibus Crime bill was devoted to dealing with the methamphetamine drug issue.We have done an effective job in stopping “meth labs”, but not so well in stopping meth traffic and addiction. Senator Julie Rosen, R-Fairmont, has led the charge in dealing with this issue. Here is a copy of SF 1580, as introduced by Senator Rosen).
Several years ago, I began to question whether long prison sentences were the best way to deal with drug offenders, who are convicted of selling drugs to pay for their own drug addiction. When a person is “hooked” on drugs, they don’t think about criminal consequences. Just in the past 7 years, Minnesota has seen a 7-fold increase in drug offenders being sent to state prison. Eventually, we have to treat these addicts, since all of them will get out of prison sooner or later.
So I asked, why couldn’t we provide the treatment “up front” and create early release incentives for inmate addicts who successfully complete treatment (while in prison), and stay off drugs for an extended period once they are released from prison. Relapsing would send the offender back to prison to finish their sentence.
Even many prosecutors and law enforcement officers favored the idea . So, in 2004, I proposed an early release program, but only for those with non-violent histories, and whose crime was clearly the product of addiction. (you can review the original bill here)
The program passed (as a pilot program at first). It will operate until 2008, when we will evaluate the results. Some inmates have already been released , and we will track them for success or failure.
Ultimately, I hope this program will save millions of dollars in prison space. We need to use prison space for violent offenders who are more dangerous to our communities.
(In 2005, I co-authored the sex offender bill, with Senator Jane Ranum, DFL-Mpls, in response to the Dru Sjodin case. That bill alone, will require the State to build more than 1200 new prison beds over the next 15 years. This is where the prison money should be spent.)
Once drug offenders are “clean” for several years, their chances of re-using drugs are greatly reduced. I think that is money better spent than $28,000 a year in prison. We must remain tough on the drug profiteers (no deals for them). But, too many parents are being taken from their children due to drug addiction. We must be smarter about how we spend our criminal justice dollars.