Mobile Register
August 8, 2005
 

If Alabama's delegates to the Southern Legislative Conference were paying attention when former Attorney General Bill Pryor spoke, then they know what they need to do next: enact sentencing reform.

Now a judge on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the Mobile native said last week that Alabama's prison system is in "crisis."

Sadly, even though they created the Alabama Sentencing Commission five years ago, state legislators have put very few of its recommendations into place. Thus Alabama's prisons are bursting at the seams, despite the governor's best efforts to reduce the number of inmates via early paroles for non-violent offenders.

Consider this statistic: From 1973 to 2000, the number of state prisoners grew by 600 percent -- even though Alabama's overall state population increased by just 30 percent. By 2003, Alabama prisons held some 23,000 inmates.

Members of the Alabama House passed voluntary sentencing standards earlier this year, but the legislation died in the state Senate. The standards would assist judges in crafting prison terms that would better reflect the amount of time a prisoner could be expected to serve.

Sentencing reform also could help by diverting a sizable number of inmates to community corrections programs, where they could benefit from drug treatment and education programs to help them succeed in returning to private life.

Indeed, Judge Pryor tackled the reform issue in 1997, when he became Alabama's youngest attorney general. But although he pushed to make the sentencing system fairer and more rational, little got done.

The need for sentencing reform persists. Alabama legislators would do well to take Judge Pryor's advice and, in their next session, revamp the system.

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