By James Halpin
The Citizens’ Voice
WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — On the heels of President Barack Obama’s call for judicial system reform last week, a number of local leaders say they agree the time for change has come.
During a speech last week before the NAACP in Philadelphia, Obama called on Congress to reduce or discard mandatory minimum sentences, restore voting rights to felons who have served their sentences, and said employers should “ban the box” asking job candidates about their past convictions.
“In far too many cases, the punishment simply doesn’t fit the crime,” Obama told a crowd of 3,300 in Philadelphia. Low-level drug dealers, for example, owe a debt to society, but not a life sentence or 20-year prison term, he said.
U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright, D-Moosic, said he has seen bipartisan support in the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform for making changes to the judicial system because of the cost of housing inmates, overcrowding concerns and the injustice of overly lengthy sentences for non-violent offenders.
“It seems like incarceration is the national pastime in this country,” Cartwright said. “For many, many people, it’s totally appropriate and I don’t want them to get out. But for a lot of them, they’re being kept way too long, particularly the non-violent offenders that don’t really pose a threat to society.”
Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Casey echoed that he has seen people on both ends of the political spectrum coming together to work on dispensing justice more fairly and putting young people back on the right track.
“Our criminal justice system is in need of substantial reform,” Casey said in a statement. “I think taxpayers are realizing the limitations of our corrections system. Ask any governor in any state, and they’ll tell you one of their biggest challenges is paying for corrections. The idea that we can just build more prisons and solve this challenge just won’t work.”
In a statement to The Citizens’ Voice, U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, R-Hazleton, said he has seen firsthand the damaging effects of illegal drugs on families and has “no sympathy for drug dealers.”
“I have heard from judges that they often wish they had greater latitude in sentencing and were able to exercise discretion in sentence lengths. Also, I believe we should be providing treatment for those inmates who are addicted to their own products so that they don’t become repeat offenders when they are released,” Barletta said. “It’s a balancing act between protecting the public and punishing criminals on one side, and rehabilitating and reclaiming lives on the other. I will carefully examine any legislation that comes forward.”
The federal prison population has skyrocketed since the war on drugs began. According to federal Bureau of Prisons numbers, the system housed 24,640 inmates in 1980, compared with 214,149 last year.
A recent audit at U.S. Penitentiary Canaan, for instance, showed a population of 1,526 with a bed count of 1,500.
“Overcrowding is a danger not only to the prisoners, but also to the correctional officers,” Cartwright said, recalling the brutal murder of Canaan Correctional Officer Eric Williams, who was beaten and stabbed to death while working alone on a cell block. “He was working alone watching 130 prisoners, many of whom were violent, dangerous, angry men.”
Those men, Cartwright said, deserve to be locked up. But keeping non-violent offenders for statutory minimum sentences doesn’t rehabilitate them, he said. It only helps drive up costs and create hardened criminals, he said.
“There’s a tendency to over-legislate criminal legislation because it makes good TV ads when you’re running for office,” Cartwright said. “There’s no denying that. Those things are popular. But it leads to bad policy, it leads to overcrowding, and it leads to a horrible national expense that other countries don’t have to pay.”
For Larry Singleton, president of the Wilkes-Barre chapter of the NAACP, it comes down to fairness. For years, many people have received sentences that did not reflect their crimes, increasing the cost to taxpayers and the burden on the prison system, he said.
“We could reform some of these individuals that would make them very productive back in society,” Singleton said. “Comparing the crime against each other, it just doesn’t fit. Some have life sentences, so that’s totally disproportionate for a non-violent crime.”