Advocates:Treatment, not prison, for non-violent offenders
WILMINGTON – Today, it's a work in progress.
But some day, many of the more than 60 people who gathered at the Carvel State Office Building Saturday hope to see the state's criminal justice system reformed.
Their vision is for the state to provide treatment instead of jail time for people with addictions, and for non-violent offenders who complete court-ordered rehabilitation to be able to ask that their charges be dropped.
They are working to craft legislation, to be called the Delaware Crime Prevention and Rehabilitation Act, that would aim to abolish all costly, ineffective and counterproductive mandatory minimum sentencing for non-violent drug offenders, and return sentencing discretion to judges.
"This is still a work in process," state Rep. Charles Potter Jr., who is supporting the reformation and organized the Saturday workshop. Potter did not say when he plans to introduce the proposal.
"We're still in transparency, getting everybody's input and then we're going to formulate the bill the right way," he said. "It's been worked on, but we want to make sure we had the peoples' input."
The bill is meant to reform the criminal justice system for offenders who are non-violent, addicted to drugs or alcohol, or mentally ill – and save taxpayers millions of dollars. It does not excuse violent offenders of their crimes.
"Those who commit these violent crimes, they must suffer the consequences," said the Rev. Christopher Bullock, pastor of the New Canaan Baptist Church and the New Castle County Council president. "But these drug-related, minor offenses, we must begin to think differently."
"This is dealing with non-violent offenders who ought not be rotting in a jail; they ought to be in a treatment center," said Bullock, who chairs the Delaware Black Caucus. He said the caucus supports the proposal.
County-based drug and mental illness treatment centers can save taxpayers $27,000 per non-violent offender every year by treating minor crimes as health problems and not criminal problems, according to Citizens for the Greater Good, a community group specializing in research on crime and justice and pushing for the reform.
Dr. Floyd E. McDowell Sr., a health care advocate who authored the proposed act, said the state's criminal justice system cannot continue on the same path.
"We are in a rut and this is the one way to get us out and onto the main highway of program and cost-effective change," the 87-year-old McDowell said. "It's tragic because I fought in World War II for not this kind of perpetuation of costly, harmful, destructive status quo."
New Castle County Executive Tom Gordon, who helped usher in mandatory minimum sentencing in the 1990s, said there is a need to realign the criminal justice system's priorities.
"There has to be alternatives to prison," said the former New Castle County police chief, adding that incarcerating drug users cannot be the only way to rid the streets of problems. "That's a problem, so I support trying to look at alternatives."
Marla C. Garris, who teaches at the Youth Law Enforcement Academy, attended the event in hopes of advocating for a peer and youth court.
"That gives a non-violent offender that is school-age an opportunity to sit before a jury of their peers to decide their fate," Garris said, adding the outcome of that would be community service.
In many instances, young people do not know that they've broken the law, or the ramifications of what they've done, she said. A youth or peer court allows them to consider the consequences. It also prepares them for similar situations.
"I'm totally encouraged," Garris said of what she was hearing Saturday. "Delaware is like a dinosaur when it comes to being progressive."
Contact Esteban Parra at (302) 324-2299, eparra@delawareonline.com or Twitter @eparra3.