In an effort to reduce the recidivism rate in Connecticut,
Michael Lawlor, Governor Dannel Malloy’s crime and punishment czar, three years
ago instituted a new bright idea called the Risk Reduction Earned Credits program.
Republicans in the General Assembly, easily ignored by the
governor and majority Democrats, were quick to point out the program’s glaring and dangerous deficiencies.
Mr. Lawlor had smuggled the program past the usual committee watchdogs in the
legislature in an end-of-the-year omnibus implementer bill, a dodge that
curtailed both legislative review and public comment.
Mr. Lawlor’s program, putatively therapeutic, requires
inmates to jump through certain hoops – behave well in prison, take certain
courses thought to be rehabilitative by some, etc. – after which they are
awarded get-out-of-jail-early credits. The credits, however, were applied
retroactively to inmates who had not been exposed to the curative effects of
Mr. Lawlor’s program.
Two criminals who were awarded early release credits
acquired weapons upon their release -- apparently in violation of the state’s
gun control laws -- and murdered two people in separate incidents in the course of two robberies.
Marginalized Republicans called for a reform of the program;
they had hoped to restrict the awards of credits only to non-violent convicted
criminals and were particularly upset that rapists, among other violent
criminals, were not excluded from Mr. Lawlor’s benefices.
A Republican state senator who requested from Mr. Lawlor data showing that his program had reduced the recidivism rate in Connecticut prisons
was rebuffed, and a Connecticut Victims Advocate who, in the course of
providing the usual services to family members of a co-owner of an EZMart store
in Meriden, shot to death by a graduate of Mr. Lawlor’s Risk Reduction Earned
Credits program, was summarily dismissed and replaced by a Victims Advocate
more amenable to Mr. Lawlor and Mr. Malloy.
Since the principal rational for Mr. Lawlor’s problem ridden
program was to reduce the recidivism rate, Republicans during the upcoming
elections might reasonably insist that Mr. Malloy order his subordinate to
review his brain-child and correct its deficiencies – this time in public
during an appropriate legislative committee review.
Trustworthy and scholarly papers on recidivism rates find
that shorter, determinate sentences and a more rapid judicial response to crime
reduce the likelihood of a return to prison. Mr. Lawlor’s program marches in exactly
the opposite direction to a much different drummer.
This election year, Connecticut Republicans – and especially
those running for office in urban areas most affected by criminals resistant to
Mr. Lawlor’s therapeutic penology – may profitably make public safety an issue
in their campaigns. A coherent program that seeks to reduce recidivism might
entail shorter, determinate sentences for non-violent crimes. Prison officials then
could be given the option of lengthening rather than reducing sentences for all
non-violent convicted criminals who abide by the terms of their incarceration.
Capital punishment in Connecticut should be reinstituted for
those who commit terrorist acts, multiple murders and fatal assaults on law
enforcement officers.
Before he was elevated by Mr. Malloy to his present position
as prison czar, Mr. Lawlor and his Democratic comrade in the state Senate
Andrew McDonald, recently appointed to the Connecticut’s Supreme Court after
having been nominated to the post by Mr. Malloy, were for many years co-chairs
of the General Assembly’s Judiciary Committee. As such, both spearheaded the successful attempt to eliminate the death penalty in Connecticut – as it happened, four years after two paroled prisoners descended upon a house
in Cheshire, beat the husband of the household unconscious with a baseball bat,
raped his wife and daughter, and set the house on fire, murdering three people.
The death penalty was abolished eight months before Adam Lanza murdered twenty
six people in Sandy Hook, most of them innocent school children. Mr. Lanza
committed suicide but, had he been taken alive, he could not have been executed
under Connecticut law for his crime.
The same Democrats in the General Assembly who abolished the
death penalty, inserted in their abolition bill a highly questionable and
perhaps unconstitutional provision that retains the death penalty for the
eleven prisoners already condemned to death. The exemption was little more than
political window dressing that permitted those opposed to a death penalty to
abolish a law while retaining the law’s punishment in the case of 11 murderers less
popular with potential voters than were the death penalty abolitionists in the
General Assembly. As a result of gubernatorial and legislative cowardice, the
state of Connecticut is now prepared to put to death 11 men in the absence of a
law authorizing a death penalty – thanks to Mr. Lawlor, Judge McDonald, Mr.
Malloy and General Assembly Democrats.
Connecticut may be stuck with Judge McDonald’s questionable judgment,
though Republicans this year running for governor should insist that the Supreme
Court Justice recuse himself in any case touching upon HIS work in the
legislature. And Republicans candidates for governor may not be out of order in
insisting that, should they be elected, Mr. Lawlor’s career in penology will be
abolished – like the death penalty.
Comments
But, speaking as a long time resident of Hartford (Indian name, "Suckiaug") the new-fangled early release program seems not of much practical import. Criminals, upon having sufficiently impressed the Connecticut authorities, are, after leaving prison, dumped in our little cities. It's one of the main reasons our towns,especially Hartford, are third world hell holes.
I'm with you on giving consideration to shorter sentences for non-violent criminals and longer ones or execution to violent ones. And, how about exile? Guantanamo is too warm. The Aleutians might be a good location for a federal human waste pilot program along the lines of those for nuclear waste.
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Both Rose and Canidate are convicted felons with extensive criminal histories.
Rose was convicted of Murder, Robbery and Kidnapping in 2001.
Canidate is a career criminal with 35 previous arrest (just in Hartford) dating back to 1993, with numerous Narcotics and Firearms related convictions.
http://wethepeoplehartford.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-justice-system-is-definitely-broke.html
Hopefully, Republicans will make public safety an issue in the coming campaign. We'll see.