Hard decisions are coming
Friday, September 30th, 2005
By Chris Fitzsimon
By Scott Mooneyham RALEIGH - State lawmakers can’t plead ignorance when it comes to prison inmates stacking up in crowded county jails because the state doesn’t have the space to take them.
For several years, the N.C. Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission has been telling the legislature that the state is headed back toward the same kind of crowding that led to lawsuits in the 1980s.
The commission was created in 1990 by the legislature to advise it about prison space and sentencing. Its work was critical in forming the state’s current structured sentencing laws, leading to longer prison terms for violent criminals and shorter terms and alternative sentencing for non-violent convicts.
Its membership includes lawyers, legislators, judges and police chiefs. It’s hardly composed of a bunch of do-gooders who see hardened criminals, with some tender loving care, blossoming into pillars of the community. (more…)
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