Before his brazen crookedness was exposed, former Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps made a lot of sense about why Mississippi should back off its “incarceration first” approach to criminal justice.
Keeping 20,000 or more people behind bars is not just expensive. It creates a permanent underclass that when it gets out of prison is likely to return to a life of crime, or become a drain on society, because of its inability to find anything more than minimal employment.
In 2011, when Epps spoke to a Greenwood civic club, he told the audience of business and professional leaders that when they think about who belongs in prison, they need to make a distinction between those they are afraid of and those they are mad at.
Epps obviously did not expect at the time that he would wind up in the latter group. Nevertheless, the reason that he’s serving a 20-year sentence at a federal prison in Texas is not because he poses a danger to anyone. It’s because the magnitude of his crime — pocketing at least $1.4 million in bribes and kickbacks — was so large that the judge who presided over the case determined that a lengthy incarceration was the only commensurate way for Epps to atone for his offense.
There was not much reason to show leniency to Epps. He was one of the most corrupt state employees in modern Mississippi history. He fooled a lot of people, including governors from both parties, into trusting him. He wantonly betrayed them by insisting he get a cut of whatever business he helped steer to companies and consultants that served the state’s prisons and regional jails.
Epps’ case aside, though, there are a lot of lesser known, less culpable offenders who shouldn’t be behind bars but only are because they didn’t have the money to hire effective counsel and because the default response of the state’s criminal justice system has historically been to lock up any and all felons.
That attitude is changing, but until recently it’s been a slow process because of the politicians’ fear of being labeled as “soft on crime.”
The momentum for reform, though, has been picking up of late because it has acquired a bipartisan appeal. Conservatives don’t like how much money goes into building, staffing and running prisons. Liberals don’t like the inequities of a system that punishes most harshly those at the bottom of the economic ladder. Both of them find common ground in their well-grounded conclusion that America’s gang-infested corrections system does very little correcting.
It was interesting to read this past week a column by Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant, published in the Commonwealth, in which he endorsed the criminal justice reform movement that is going on at state and federal levels. Bryant’s phrasing had echoes to what Epps was preaching seven years ago.
“Research has shown there are better ways to prevent crime than filling our jails and prisons to capacity,” wrote Bryant. “To be sure, there are individuals who deserve to never leave prison for the rest of their life due to violent crimes and being a danger to society. And then there are those that we’re mad at for making bad decisions, sometimes habitually, but pose no threat to the public. These individuals must also be held fully accountable, but also be able to re-enter society with a much higher success rate than we’re currently seeing.”
Nobody is going to accuse Bryant, a former deputy sheriff, of being squishy on crime. When he served in the legislature during the 1990s, he was one of those who supported the state enacting the broadest “truth-in-sentencing” law in the nation. It required not only violent criminals but non-violent ones to serve at least 85 percent of their sentence before being eligible for parole.
That law caused Mississippi’s prison population and corrections budget to quickly skyrocket. It is from that law that the legislature, with Bryant’s support, has been gradually backing away during this decade.
The Republican governor now has joined a coalition of people from both political parties and all sides of the criminal justice system to push for even more sweeping changes.
What those are will need to be hashed out, but there is no shortage of good ideas.
For a start, do away with cash bonds for people who pose no risk of fleeing or of harming others while they are out awaiting trial. It’s not just prisons that are expensive but so are county jails, where people are held, sometimes for years, because their cases creep along in the courts and they have no way to come up with the money to bond out.
Make prison time the exception, rather than the rule, for people who get arrested because of their drug habits, even if they’re selling small quantities to support their addiction. Unless they’re big-time dealers, it’s better to force them into treatment rather than prison.
Modify the habitual criminal statutes that currently mandate long, and even life sentences for three-time offenders, regardless of the severity of their latest crime. Give more leeway to judges to decide the punishment that fits the felony and to parole boards to decide whether an inmate’s behavior justifies earlier-than-normal release.
In a nutshell, use pricey prison space for those who are violent, incorrigible or big-time criminals, but try less expensive, more rehabilitative approaches for most everyone else.
Contact Tim Kalich at 662-581-7243 or tkalich@gwcommonwealth.com.
