Sentencing Panel Mulls Alternatives to Prison

The U.S. Sentencing Commission is considering endorsing options including treatment programs for nonviolent users of drugs such as crack. (By Damian Dovarganes -- Associated Press)

Howell said maintaining a prison population equal to the size of a major U.S. city "is inconsistent with what Congress had in mind with the Sentencing Reform Act" of 1984, which created the commission.

"Our purpose is not just to issue guidelines setting forth the severity of punishment, but to provide guidelines to judges for the form of that punishment," Howell said. "The commission has spent most of its time on the severity. It is somewhat new for us to look at the form of the punishment, and that's where alternatives come in."

The commission's consideration of alternatives comes the year after it defied the Bush administration by relaxing tough sentencing guidelines for crack cocaine offenders and making its decision retroactive, so that thousands already in prison could seek release before the end of their terms. About 4,000 mostly nonviolent offenders have taken advantage of the policy so far, according to members of the commission and the federal Bureau of Prisons.

The Justice Department, U.S. attorneys and the National District Attorneys Association strongly opposed easing the guidelines for crack cocaine offenders and making them retroactive. But the reaction to possible prison alternatives has not been as pronounced.

"My experience tells me that if the drug court is properly constituted and has the buy-in of judges, prosecutors and parole officials, they are very effective," said Tom Sneddon, interim executive director of the district attorneys group and a former Santa Barbara, Calif., prosecutor who helped establish a drug court there.

"But there are some courts that are shadow programs that they use to cycle people back into society and not send them to prison, and have no real substance at all," Sneddon said.

Another program under consideration would allow judges to develop rehabilitation programs for parolees based on their needs -- such as employment, education or drug treatment. Parolees could join the program upon their release from prison or after committing a minor parole violation, such as failing to update an address or a telephone number.

Texas criminal district court Judge John Creuzot said drug courts have worked in his state. He said he established a program after Texas got tough on minor drug offenders, jailing them for two years.

"Well, that thing started to break down by the late 1990s," he said, ". . . because then we had so many people in penitentiaries that we were actually letting murderers and rapists out to make room for these small violators, low-risk violators. And so we started rethinking what we were doing."

The 18-month program accepts low-level drug offenders with no felony records or histories of violence. "We did a study of that program, and we have a 68 percent reduction of recidivism in that program," Creuzot said. "It's a phenomenally successful program."

For parolees, job training is seen as the chief remedy to repeated incarceration, said Judge Robert Holmes Bell, chief U.S. district judge for the Western District of Michigan. "In the old days, the warden of the prison used to give the person a bus ticket and $20 and say, 'Godspeed to you,' and away they went."

The Sentencing Commission's staff is drafting a proposal amending its guidelines that the panel could submit for public comment in late December. The commission could make a final decision by May 1. Congress would then have 180 days to reverse the decision.