Public Defense

Criminal justice reform wheels start turning again

By Gideon

If it’s January, it must be time to get ready for the special session of the legislature. The only focus, as everyone probably knows, is how to fix the state’s criminal justice system which is so horribly broken. I mean, it’s in tatters. So much so that it’s almost a miracle that the wheels haven’t come off, inmates aren’t roaming the streets of our city in packs hunting little babies for Satanic rituals and the plague isn’t upon us.

So the Democrats released their proposals yesterday and the Governor followed up with her own today. I’ll mention the choice ones:

1. A new crime of home invasion, which would be a violent crime. It basically reads like this: “A home invasion occurs when an individual unlawfully enters or remains in a dwelling which is occupied and such dwelling is located in any of Connecticut’s affluent suburbs. For the rest of you, it’s still a burglary.”

2. Re-working the “three strikes law” to make it more…workable. The Governor goes further and provides for a mandatory life sentence for third time violent felony offenders, which cannot be reviewed until 30 years have passed. The Dems want to make it a 25 year minimum, putting it on par with murder. There goes incentive not to kill.

3. The Dems want to establish tougher and more secure re-entry procedures for offenders returning to the community as they complete their sentence. The Governor doesn’t think re-entry is important enough to be considered during the special session, so she leaves it for the regular session. Good job. If we don’t ever let ‘em out, we don’t have to worry about re-entry!

4. The Governor then goes overboard with some bizarre victim amendments, like victims have to be notified before a plea offer is made and family members of the victim are also now officially victims. Whatever.

By the way, I don’t see a single proposal for increasing funding for Corrections (not that it isn’t the biggest money hog ever) or Correctional officers or more training or… I know…prevention. No, no. That’s too damn liberal. Sorry.

So there you have it. A whole lot of nonsense that still leaves a horrible taste in my mouth because this “urgency” came about only because three white people from an affluent suburb were killed. Yeah, I said it.*

I’m considering turning comments off for this post, but I’ll leave them on for now. Be warned, though. I have an itchy trigger finger on this one. I will close comments if I feel like it, without warning. It’s my blog. Deal with it.

*Now before any of you go saying “Oh you don’t care about people you killerhugger” and “how can you say that. three people died! it’s horrible!”, let me re-iterate (meaning I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again) that I don’t condone violence or crime. Obviously. No one does. But that’s not what I’m talking about here. So please understand that.

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Full post as published by A Public Defender on January 08, 2008 (boomark / email).