During last week’s special session of the Alabama Legislature to deal with prison construction, some Democrats argued against new prisons and said state government should focus more of its efforts on criminal justice reforms to alleviate problems plaguing the current prison system.
Two so-called criminal justice reform measures were considered that would retroactively apply previously passed reform measures to convicted criminals prior to the law passage. One of those measures, HB 2, a sentencing reform bill that made a 2015 law retroactive for those sentenced before that passage of that law and allowed for a supervised release near the end of an inmate’s sentence was signed into law by Gov. Kay Ivey, along with a $1.3 billion prison construction package.
Just hours after Ivey’s signing ceremony, Sheffield Police Department Sgt. Nick Risner was one of two officers shot while on duty during an incident in Muscle Shoals. A day later, he died from that injury.
State Rep. Connie Rowe (R-Jasper) also questioned why such focus was put on the release of some inmates done in the name of criminal justice reform. Rowe, during an interview with Mobile radio FM Talk 106.5’s “The Jeff Poor Show,” said in some cases the “criminal justice reform” mantra was a disguise for “let’s let as many people out of jail as we possibly can.”
“[Y]ou know, I was a police chief prior to my time in Montgomery,” she said. “When I went to roll call, what I always ended roll call with was the most important thing that you will do today is go home safely. And I think there are a lot of leaders in law enforcement who expressed that to the officers who serve under them. And certainly felt that way, and it is a tragedy. Once again, we have someone who has died at the hands of someone else who should have never been let out of prison.”
“I don’t understand why we go to all of the trouble that we do — all of the processes that we do to put people in prison, and then all of a sudden it is a thing to let people out of prison. I mean, a lot of police officers respond to calls, make arrests, go to grand jury, why are warrants issued, why do we go to court, why do we serve sentences?” Rowe continued. “You know, we already have ‘good time’ in the state of Alabama, which means you get sentenced to 20 years, allegedly if you don’t misbehave, you’ll get out in seven. If you do a 10-year sentence, you’re going to get out in three with ‘good time.’”
“The guy who shot the police officer in north Alabama — he had several violations, some of them, I think, significant — and he was still let out on ‘good time,’” she added. “I have lots and lots of problems with it. The first time I ever heard of criminal justice reform was at a leadership conference that I went to at the University of Virginia. The Obama administration was pushing grants out from DoJ to law enforcement agencies to look at criminal justice reform. And that is a disguise for ‘let’s let as many people out of jail as we possibly can.’”
The Walker County lawmaker acknowledged the objective was to reduce recidivism and explained there were measures that could be taken to achieve that objective. However, she expressed her skepticism of early releases done in the name of reducing recidivism.
“[I] have never ever believed, read or understood the argument that simply letting someone out early is going to reduce recidivism,” Rowe said.
@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and the University of South Alabama, the editor of Breitbart TV, a columnist for Mobile’s Lagniappe Weekly, and host of Mobile’s “The Jeff Poor Show” from 9 a.m.-12 p.m. on FM Talk 106.5.
