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"Low-level felons add millions to spending"

By Douglas A. Berman

The title of this post is the headline of this article from North Carolina providing another local dispatch from the prison economy. Here is how the piece begins: North Carolina's habitual-felon law is powerful: A three-time criminal who breaks into a parking meter or has a crack pipe with cocaine residue can be sentenced as if he were a rapist. It is expensive: These longer sentences add an average $195,000 in prison costs for each habitual felon, an analysis by The News & Observer of Raleigh shows.  Since the law took effect in 1994, taxpayers have committed an additional $1.5billion to house habitual felons  ? and an additional $264million to build prisons for them. And it is untouchable at the General Assembly.  District attorneys and sheriffs have squashed all attempts to change it by painting opponents as coddlers of criminals, said former Rep...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on June 08, 2009 (boomark / email).