Overcrowded prisons have become an albatross for many states, including South Carolina, where the Sentencing Reform Commission's recent report addresses key deficiencies in the state's prison system. According to The Sun News, criminal justice experts Eric Sevigny and Benjamin Steiner dissected several aspects of prison, parole and rehabilitation in South Carolina and are taking steps toward further distinguishing between violent and nonviolent crimes.
The major issue in the sentencing reform report is how to accommodate the state's criminal justice system without spending millions of dollars on building new prisons. As the inmate population grows, additional resources are required to house and manage people convicted of crimes, creating a significant drain on the state's finances.
According to Sevigny and Steiner, South Carolina would save money and perhaps reduce crime by creating tougher prison sentences for violent offenders while reducing prison time and increasing community-based programs for nonviolent offenders. This would mean strengthening the probation and parole systems in the state and equipping parole officers with the tools necessary to properly evaluate parolees.
The idea is that violent criminals are a greater danger to South Carolina residents and should therefore be the ones to spend time behind bars. Drug users and other nonviolent offenders might be sentenced to community service, counseling, therapy and other programs that would serve to rehabilitate without having to house, feed and otherwise care for them.
Of course, sentencing reform does not happen overnight. Although this plan might save money for South Carolina, it would require a significant investment to get off the ground. This could mean higher taxes for residents in the short term in order to enjoy long-term gains, and Steiner estimates that the plan would take about 10 years to bring to fruition.
Steiner and Sevigny also warn legislators against enacting only parts of the sentencing reform plan rather than its entirety. For example, reducing prison sentences for nonviolent offenders, but failing to crack down on violent offenders, might actually make the problem worse. Similarly, the plan would likely not work if community-based programs were not adequately funded.
