DE Attorney General proposes reforms to criminal justice system
In the state of Delaware, the prison population today is almost the same as it was six years ago. The population is also higher than the national average.
Those are just a couple reasons why Attorney General Matt Denn is eyeing changes in the state’s criminal justice system. He presented his ideas to the Rotary Club of Wilmington on Thursday.
Denn says, “The Delaware Department of Justice will for the first time in it’s history not only drop it’s opposition to the ‘Three Strikes and You’re Out’ law, but actually propose some changes in that statue.”
Denn will be presenting legislation to make changes in his state’s criminal justice system and has outlined the reforms in seven points. However, a major piece of the proposal revolves around scaling back the state’s ‘Three Strikes and You’re Out’ minimum mandatory sentencing law.
Denn continues, “We have people in our prisons now serving life for drug trafficking and burglary offenses.”
Right now, the law requires life sentences for three time violent felons, no matter what their felony was. Denn wants to eliminate automatic life sentences for three violent felonies. Instead, he wants the mandatory sentence for a third violent felony the maximum sentence for that individual felony.
For example, there’s a man serving life right now in Delaware for stealing coats from a discount store, while pretending to have a gun. That was his third violent felony, but if the law had this suggested change, he would have been sentenced just for theft and pretending to have a fire arm. Denn says he’s doing this with two goals in mind. The first is moral.
Denn goes on, “If there are people in jail who are serving sentences that are clearly disproportionate to the crimes they committed, that’s a moral wrong that ought to be righted.”
Denn’s second is goal is financial. He says government costs have to be reduced if the state wants to increase their investment in areas like front line law enforcement, drug addiction treatment, and re-entry programs. That low funding in those areas creates a serious public safety issue.
Denn’s says, “Directing our savings that we gain from these reforms into these efforts. It’s not going to completely fix the problem, but it’ll help. It’ll be a step in the right direction.”
However, the change in this law is not in an effort to get people off the hook.
Denn continues, “To be clear, we will still support mandatory sentences for habitual offenders, but we believe those minimum mandatory sentences should reflect the crimes that have been committed.”
The attorney general says if these reforms are passed they would affect the sentencing of offenders in the future.
Offenders sentenced under the old rules would have the opportunity to have their sentence reviewed.
