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Ohio on path to turning to treatment over prison for non-violent drug offenders

By Douglas A. Berman

As detailed in this local article, Ohio is yet another state with newly elected conservative leadership getting behind sentencing and prison reform programming.  Here are the basics: A proposed overhaul of Ohio's criminal-justice system rolled out yesterday, supported by top officials in all three branches of government, contains elements that politicians and voters flatly rejected in the past: shortened sentences for inmates who complete certain programs in prison, and diverting nonviolent drug offenders to treatment instead of prison. The state's much-heralded 1996 Truth in Sentencing Law banished "good-time" provisions and established fixed-term sentences for most offenses. In 2002, Ohio voters soundly rejected a statewide ballot issue advocating "treatment instead of incarceration" for nonviolent drug offenders...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on February 03, 2011 (boomark / email).