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1. Read, Take
Pieces, & Edit the following Message:
(or write your own)
We invite you to
consider the following:
1. Merit Time promotes Rehabilitation.
Motivation for effective
rehabilitation depends on strong personal incentives. Earlier release is a
powerful incentive and should be offered to most inmates conditioned upon their
completion of major rehabilitation programs and demonstration of evident
rehabilitation.
Comprehensive rehabilitation programs have proven to reduce recidivism
significantly. Depending on each prisoner’s circumstance, a serious restorative
program of addiction treatment, cognitive development, education, and job
training can be effective in making possible a law-abiding re-integration into
society.
2. Merit Time Produces
Large Savings.
With earned rehabilitation incentives, the prisoner,
his family and society, all benefit. Reductions
of 15-30% of many sentences translates directly into diverse cost savings. Prison costs are reduced by both shorter
periods of current incarceration and less costs of recidivism. There are fewer
future crimes and fewer future victims. More effective and less costly prison
management, and control of prisoners with less pressure on correction officers,
are corollary benefits of good rehabilitation programs and genuine earned
rehabilitation incentives.
In NY State,
we release about 20,000 prisoners back into society each year, of whom about
half are labeled as “violent offenders.” If only one-third of these once
“violent offenders” earned such merit time, and if that reduced each sentence by
only one year, then at $32,000 per year, the savings
from that alone would be about $105 million per year.
3. Merit Time Improves
Justice.
Reduction of sentences
for worthy inmates promotes justice in view of the excessive increases in
sentences in the past several decades.
Consider the
truths published by nine expert criminologists in "Unlocking America,"
JFA Institute,
Nov. 2007, concerning length of
incarceration:
"For the same
crimes, U.S. prisoners receive sentences twice as long as English prisoners,
three times as long as Canadian prisoners, four times as long as Dutch
prisoners, five times as long as Swedish prisoners and five to ten times as
long as French prisoners. Yet these countries’ rates of violent crime are
lower than ours, and their rates of property crime are comparable.
Three facts: a) many prisoners are now serving longer
prison terms; b) the longer prison terms are not proportionate to the
severity of the crime they were convicted of; and c) the extension of their
length of incarceration has no major impact on their recidivism rate, or
crime rates in general".
4. Merit Time and Released 'Violent Offenders'.
The same JFA document reports
that: Of the total arrests in 1994-97, only 5% were of prisoners released in
1994-97, and only 1% were of released prisoners for violent crimes. Just 1.2 % of
those who served time for homicide and were released in 1994 were
re-arrested for a new homicide within three years of release; and just 2.5%
of released rapists were arrested for another rape.
Modern risk assessment
technologies can improve the probability that only those of less risk are
granted early release under a merit time program. It clearly is unjust
to withhold merit time and so penalize all those who long ago were convicted
of a violent crime. Today, a much narrower exclusion can be prudently
designed.
The NY Commission on Sentencing Reform states, in its October 15, 2007
report, "Merit time encourages inmates to engage in beneficial programming that
helps them prepare for successful re-entry into the community. An expanded merit
time program that allowed certain inmates who are serving a determinate sentence
for a violent felony to earn 1/7 (or even 1/6) off a sentence (perhaps capped at
six months or one year) would have much to commend it."
"At the heart of evidence-based practices is
the adoption of a validated "risk and needs" assessment
instrument which can assist sentencing judges
-- as well as prison, probation and parole authorities -- to more
accurately estimate the actual risk posed by an offender, identify personal
deficits that have contributed to the
offender's past criminality and target those deficits most likely to lead
to further criminal behavior."''
I therefore urge you to
SUPPORT THE POSITION OF THE nys COALITION FOR REHABILITATION AND REENTRY
AS FOLLOWS :
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The Coalition supports an expanded use of merit time to include a greater number
of inmates, including qualified once-violent offenders, and a greater incentive for
completion of specific rehabilitative accomplishments.
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Modern risk assessment
tools should be used to safely open merit time eligibility to qualified
inmates who long ago were convicted as 'violent offenders'.
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Prior to 1967 inmates were eligible to receive ten days per month off the
minimum of an indeterminate sentence or off the amount of a definite sentence.
The Coalition supports a return to this standard to provide a very meaningful
incentive to eligible prisoners.
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Incarcerated persons should have an
incentive-based
rehabilitation plan for a reentry-process that begins at the time of
conviction,
and sets the minimum requirements for consideration
of early release. Merit time credits for satisfactory progress in the
rehabilitation program should be amassed and vested in six month intervals
to reinforce the incentive for progress.
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Completion of this “rehabilitation goal” should not guarantee
early release. It should, however, guarantee an earlier comprehensive review,
and consideration for early release, by a parole board or other review body.
Most inmates, including many once-violent offenders, will return to the
community and most are capable of redemption; meaningful programming could
prepare them for a crime-free life.
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The early comprehensive review and consideration of release should carry with it
a rebutable presumption of release. If, however, early release is denied, the
earned merit time should be applied to the maximum sentence.
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