Scenes of Prison
Addendum:
63. Centralized Sentencing
I n 2014, an investigative reporter with the Omaha World-Herald published an explosive story about the Nebraska Department of Corrections. It claimed that the Department had miscalculated the release dates of hundreds of prisoners and had released them before they had completed their sentences.
The tenor of the story was alarm. It seemed that an imminent danger had been loosed upon the community because of the Department’s mistake. The correct date was critical. An early release put everyone in danger.
Did it?
Two weeks later, the Nebraska Attorney General, Jon Bruning, announced the results of a review conducted by his office. Three hundred and six prisoners had been released early, but they were only going to rearrest twenty-five of them. These prisoners would be brought back to complete their sentences.
Why these twenty-five and not the others?
He didn’t really give a satisfactory explanation.
The incident prompted vigorous discussion within the Department and also during my frequent lunchtime conversations with Benjamin and Richard. Why these twenty-five? They had not committed new crimes. They appeared to have adjusted to life outside the prison.
Did they need more punishment? Had they not suffered quite as much as we wanted them to suffer before we released them?
Was it a matter of rehabilitation? Was it impossible for prisoners to be rehabilitated and safe to release until the judge’s imposed sentence had been completed? Was there something magical about the length of the sentence or the law it was based upon? Could it be that the target date of completion must be reached before an inmate could possibly have finished rehabilitating?
Was it a matter of pride? We must obey the judge. He’s the boss, and he tolerates no disobedience. We don’t want to anger any judges.
We debated these positions endlessly, but we couldn’t resolve them because none of us could ask the Attorney General to explain himself.
Six years later, on March 5, 2020, it happened again. This time 187 inmates were affected, and 45 had been released early. The Director of the Department at this time, Scott Frakes, announced that this time they would not try to recapture any of these offenders and return them to prison. This most recent mistake served to reopen the discussions from the earlier event from 2014, and it prompted us to think again about why we sentence people to prison.
Are we punishing them?
Are we angry with them?
Are we intending to rehabilitate them?
Are we trying to protect ourselves and don’t care what happens to the people we send to prison?
Do we want to make an example of them as a deterrence to others, to warn them not to commit crimes?
Could all of these considerations mingle into an unrecognizable mush that leaves us unable to understand or articulate why we do what we do? I suspect this is the correct answer.
I believe we should recognize that strong, conflicting emotions often intrude upon and spoil the decisions we make that send people to prison. It’s a mess, and the resulting prison sentences satisfy no one. Consequently, I have a suggestion for your consideration.
We should create a new authority within state government called a Sentencing Authority. It could be a separate agency, or it could be a new responsibility folded into an existing agency like the Board of Parole.
With a Sentencing Authority in place, district judges would no longer impose permanent sentences of confinement on convicted felons standing before them. Judges would submit their sentencing recommendations to the centralized Sentencing Authority located in the state’s capitol, and this agency would make the final decisions. This Sentencing Authority would actually impose prison sentences on convicted felons.
Three factors would enter into the decisions of the Sentencing Authority: 1) the offender’s criminal record and other factors identified in a presentence investigation including the judge’s recommended sentence, 2) the sentences imposed upon other offenders living elsewhere in the state for the same crime, and 3) the availability of rooms in the prison system. This would enable the Sentencing Authority to respond to factors they discover in their review.
They may find, for example, that a young man has great remorse and a determination to turn his life around if given a chance to do so. This prisoner may be sentenced to a variable term of years with a wide separation between the bottom and top numbers. This would give the offender a chance to prove himself and win an early release if he can carry through with the promise the Sentencing Authority noticed.
With another prisoner, they may discover a ruthless, cold blooded killer who enjoys killing and will likely kill again. This prisoner may avoid a much-deserved death penalty if he were to be sentenced in a sparsely populated rural jurisdiction. The judge would not want to saddle his local community with the burden of legal expenses for years to come defending the imposition of a death sentence.
A centralized sentencing authority would assume this obligation, and a cold-blooded killer would get the sentence he deserves rather than the sentence the county can afford.
Finally, a centralized sentencing authority would eliminate disparity in sentences across jurisdictions. It would increase fairness in sentencing.
Professional staff in this agency would be thorough and dispassionate in reviewing cases, and their sentencing decisions would be free of bias and vengeance. They would not sentence people out of anger.
This Authority would also be in charge of determining release dates. They would do all the bookkeeping and calculating, and it would be a familiar and routine job for them. They wouldn’t make mistakes. We could count on them, and mistaken releases of hundreds of prisoners at a time would no longer occur.
I would also hope that this agency would make greater use of the death penalty.
A sentence of life without parole condemns a person to live in a prison and never leave it. He will die there. Life without parole is a sentence that gives up on a person. It accepts that the person is beyond hope and can never again live in a free society. It also injects into the prison an extremely dangerous person who is beyond the normal pressures that control most inmates’ behavior. He is an ongoing threat and he may well keep right on killing.
Imposing a death sentence would be the prerogative of the Sentencing Authority, but speaking for all the inmates who have been murdered in prison by inmates who should have been executed, I hope the staff at the Sentencing Authority would demonstrate the courage to impose this sentence when it is needed. Many, many inmates in our prisons would breathe easier and sleep better at night if they did.
Discussion
- If the author has convinced you, and you believe a centralized sentencing authority is desirable and appropriate, what’s the next step?
- What could you do to help this change occur?
- What role should punishment play in determining the length of sentences?
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