New sentencing laws add costs for Hamilton County

• Allows judges to order treatment instead of incarceration for certain theft offenses, including when an offender's mental illness or mental disability contributed to the crime.

• Requires that judges sentence offenders convicted of first-time nonviolent felonies to halfway houses or other local options rather than prison.

• Eliminates mandatory prison sentences for certain drug charges if the offender has not been convicted of the offense before.

• Raises from $500 to $1,000 the amount of money in theft cases needed to charge someone with a felony.

• Requires the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction within three months to review the cases of all parole-eligible inmates 65 years old or older and requires the Ohio Parole Board to review those cases for possible release.

• Allows the prison system to ask courts to release offenders with prison sentences of one year or more who have served at least 80 percent of their time. This provision does not apply to offenders serving life terms or terms for violent felonies.

• Raises maximum sentences for people convicted of certain serious and violent crimes.

• Lets counties create and run community alternative sentencing centers for offenders convicted of misdemeanors with sentences of 30 days or less.

• Lets judges sentence certain offenders convicted of failure to provide child support to community control, such as halfway houses, instead of prison time.

• Eliminates the distinction between penalties for drug offenses involving crack cocaine and powder cocaine.

• Creates new criminal categories for offenders convicted of possessing or selling smaller amounts of marijuana and hashish and provides potentially shorter prison terms for such convictions.

• Gives juvenile court judges more leeway in granting early release to children serving time in Department of Youth Services detention facilities.

• Gives juvenile judges discretion in determining whether certain youth should serve time in adult or youth prisons.

The Associated Press

Gov. John Kasich signed into law Wednesday criminal sentencing reforms that could release thousands of non-violent prisoners from the expensive prison system - and keep them out with drug rehabilitation and other programs.

But it may also bring a lot of headaches - and some resentment - to Hamilton County officials who believe the law means more mandated bureaucracy they will now have to pay for at a time when county government is struggling with a reduced budget and the possibility of additional layoffs among county workers.

New Hawaii Taskforce Tackles Cost of Crime | Hawaii Reporter

– An unprecedented gathering of federal, state and local officials took place at the Hawaii State Capitol on Tuesday.

The new task force, which includes Chief Justice Mark Recktenwald, Senate President Shan Tsutsui, House Speaker Calvin Say, Gov. Neil Abercrombie, Director of Public Safety Jodie Maesaka-Hirata as well as other legislators, judges, public safety administrators and law enforcement, have teamed up with the Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center, the Pew Center on the States and the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) to create a “justice reinvestment” plan.

The state’s Justice Reinvestment Working Group is looking for ways to lower crime and recidivism rates, and save taxpayers money, while also bringing Hawaii’s prisoners home from less costly private mainland prison facilities.

Marshall Clement, Project Director from the Council of State Governments Justice Center, offered the task force several crime statistics including the fact that Hawaii has seen a 13 percent increase in violent crime and a 26 percent decrease in property crime over the last 10 years.

Alternatives such as drug court and Judge Steve Alm’s Hawai’i Opportunity Probation with Enforcement (HOPE) program also has helped dropped recidivism rates, he said.

Fourteen other states have already undergone reforms in partnership with the Justice Reinvestment initiatives. Texas was able to save $200 million as a result and several other states have found cost savings and lower crime rates with these reforms.

“State leaders across the country are recognizing that there are research-based strategies for nonviolent offenders that can cut both crime and corrections costs,” said Adam Gelb, Director of the Public Safety Performance Project at the Pew Center on the States. “With this bipartisan, inter-branch working group, Hawai’i has an excellent opportunity to craft reforms that will hold offenders accountable and give the state a better public safety return on its corrections dollars.”

Hawaii’s coordinators will by August complete data gathering for Hawaii, launch into evaluation and analysis with task force members this fall, and establish new legislative proposals by January 2012 when the legislative session begins.

Gov. Neil Abercrombie, who stopped in briefly to the meeting to welcome new task force members, emphasized his plan to bring Hawaii’s prisoners in mainland facilities back to the state. An estimated one third of Hawaii’s prison population in in the mainland because of a shortage of prison space. The mainland contracts cost Hawaii taxpayers $45 million, and while the cost per prisoner is considerably less in the mainland when compared to costs locally, Abercrombie said he wants to keep the money here.

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