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DFL proposes rehabilitating prisoners; GOP calls it ’Get Out of Jail Free’ bill [1]
['Deena Winter', 'More From Author', '- April']
Date: 2023-04
Senate Democrats were set to pass a $880 million public safety and judiciary bill Friday, including money for youth intervention programs; money for recruitment and retention of police officers; reducing a backlog of forensic evidence at the state crime lab; increased funding to help courts address a backlog of cases; expansion of treatment courts; and funding of multi-jurisdictional teams that focus on gang and drug crimes.
Funding is also included for two gun control bills.
Republicans mocked their Democratic-Farmer-Labor colleagues.
Holding up a “get out of jail free” Monopoly card, Sen. Warren Limmer, R-Maple Grove, said during a Friday press conference he’s never seen a more “dangerous bill” come out of the judiciary committee, which he chaired before the DFL took control of the Senate this year.
“It’s soft on crime and doesn’t address violent, repeated offenders with any stiffer penalties or longer sentences,” Limmer said.
Limmer said he’s concerned about legislation that would allow most prisoners — except the most violent — to get out of prison earlier and shorten their community supervision time if they participate in rehabilitation and treatment programs. Thirty-eight other states have similar “earned release” policies.
State corrections officials say most prisoners are just being warehoused, with no incentive to participate in programs that would reduce the likelihood they’ll re-offend.
Minnesota already has one of the lowest incarceration rates in the nation: People serve two-thirds of their sentence in prison, and one-third on supervised release, regardless of whether they seek treatment while imprisoned. The bill would allow prisoners to get out when they have served half of their sentence if they complete programs tailored to their needs.
Limmer, a former corrections officer, said 7,400 out of about 8,000 state prisoners would be eligible to get out when half their sentence is done, including people convicted of crimes such as rape, carjacking, second- or third-degree murder, kidnapping and arson.
“Minnesotans should be very concerned about this bill,” Limmer said. “I just don’t understand why we are not protecting the public more.”
The juvenile program “codifies a soft-on-crime approach,” he said, by reducing the sentences of juveniles who are tried as adults, including retroactively. They could get their sentences reduced from the maximum of 25 years to 15 years.
The Minnesota County Attorneys Association opposes the change, and compiled a list of 96 people who committed crimes while juveniles who would be eligible for earlier release. The list includes an ax murderer; a person who stabbed and slit the throat of a homeless person; a person who beat a blind man to death with a baseball bat; and a person who stabbed a woman 193 times and killed a 10-year-old child.
Sen. Ron Latz, a St. Louis Park Democrat and chair of the Senate Judiciary and Public Safety Committee, said the plan will give prisoners an incentive to better themselves through education programs, workforce training, addiction treatment and mental health programs.
“The incentive is less time in prison — that’s a pretty big incentive,” Latz said. “It baffles me why the GOP would find that problematic.”
The GOP also accused Democrats of funneling $91 million to community non-profits under the guise of crime prevention.
Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson accused the DFL Senators of hiding their public safety plan by “jamming up” the Senate floor with three big catch-all budget bills being debated Friday.
“I think the GOP is really struggling to try to find a message that they think will gain some traction,” Latz said.
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[1] Url:
https://minnesotareformer.com/briefs/dfl-proposes-rehabilitating-prisoners-gop-calls-it-get-out-of-jail-free-bill/
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