State legislative leaders on Monday proposed sweeping changes to criminal justice in Georgia, including a plan to reduce prison terms for some offenders and divert others into treatment rather than locking them up.
House Bill 1176 asserts that prison is by far the most expensive way to punish nonviolent offenders and that other methods are both cheaper and more effective. The reform effort would save tens of millions of dollars by reserving prison beds for violent criminals, backers say.
“This initiative represents a significant first step in bringing conservative common sense to our criminal justice system,” said Rep. Rich Golick, R-Smyrna, the lead sponsor of the bill.
But the bill did not immediately win the support of Gov. Nathan Deal, who has pledged to lead the state’s effort to reform its criminal justice system. Deal said the bill failed to include all of the recommendations of a special council appointed to study the state’s approach to criminal sentencing.
Georgia spends more than $1 billion a year on prisons. Maintaining current sentencing laws would require Georgians to spend another $264 million over the next five years for more prison beds, the special council found.
“The governor will need to see changes in the current bill that will bring it back toward the recommendations of the Criminal Justice Reform Council,” said Brian Robinson, Deal’s spokesman. “The process is intended to reduce costs to taxpayers, and it’s his opinion that this bill might actually increase costs.”
The bill would:
- Create three categories of punishment for burglary: the harshest sentences would go to those who have a weapon, hurt someone or commit the crime at night; less severe penalties would be allowed for those who burglarize structures that are not dwellings. Current law treats all burglaries the same.
- Raise the felony threshold for shoplifting from $300 to $1,000.
- Create a new forgery category related to writing checks, and change the felony threshold for writing bad checks from $500 to $1,000.
- Create a new range of sentences for drug possession, with less severe punishment for small quantities of drugs and more severe punishment for larger quantities.
- Allow offenders on probation or parole to graduate to a lower level of supervision if they follow a self-improvement plan.
The bill would allow the Department of Corrections to start a pilot program that would identify the lowest-risk nonviolent drug and property offenders headed to prison and allow judges to divert them to community-based supervision programs.
The special council had called for felony charges for thefts of $1,500 or above, but the bill set the threshold at $1,000. The council also recommended giving judges the authority to depart from mandatory minimum sentences in some drug trafficking cases and decriminalize some minor traffic offenses, but those options are not included in HB 1176.
The bill will be considered by a special joint committee of the state House and Senate, instead of following the usual process of being reviewed separately by committees of the two chambers.
“With this bill, Georgia is taking a timely opportunity to bring innovation and reform to our criminal justice system,” said Sara Totonchi, director of the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta. “I am hopeful that we will see in Georgia the same improvements in public safety and reduction of recidivism that have been seen in other states that implemented similar reforms.”
Douglas County District Attorney David McDade commended Deal for the initiative. The criminal justice system “benefits greatly when our leaders and stakeholders honestly commit to take a long, hard look at how we do things and be courageous enough to change what needs to be changed and to fight to keep what works,” he said.
McDade said he supports increasing the maximum punishment for aggravated burglaries. “But breaking into an outbuilding or shed should be treated a little differently, and I support that,” he said.
One quibble prosecutors may have, he said, is reducing the severity of some drug laws. “There’s no doubt we need to be smarter on how we deal with drug offenses,” McDade said. “But this is an ongoing conversation.”
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