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MA: Rage shouldn?t drive parole reform. By Judge Nancy Gertner

By Real Cost of Prisons Project (The Sentencing Project)

Rage shouldn?t drive parole reform By Nancy Gertner March 19, 2011 Boston Globe--Opinion IN AN outburst of righteous rage over the Polly Klass murder committed by a twice-convicted offender in California ? not unlike the reaction in Massachusetts to the senseless shooting of Officer John Maguire allegedly at the hands of parolee Domenic Cinelli in December ? California passed the 1994 ?Three Strikes You?re Out?? law. The law significantly increased the prison sentences of people convicted of a felony after two prior violent felony convictions. But it also led to dangerous prison overcrowding, budget-busting corrections expenditures, and a recidivism rate that skyrocketed to one of the highest in the country. Will Massachusetts repeat California?s mistake? One important purpose of the California law was to increase public safety...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog on March 21, 2011 (boomark / email).