Opinion
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Early release
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Published: October 26, 2009
Call it an unintended consequence or a legislative oversight. However North Carolinians explain changes in state sentencing laws made three decades ago, the consequence is apparent, and dangerous, right now.
Twenty inmates who had been sentenced to life will soon be released -- maybe as early as Oct. 29.
The N.C. Supreme Court has affirmed a Court of Appeals ruling setting the inmates free. The 1974-to-1981 legal changes set a life sentence at 80 years and later cut it in half by allowing inmates to earn time off for good behavior.
Gov. Bev Perdue has promised to do all possible to keep the inmates in prison and last week ordered prison officials not to release the inmates, potentially setting up a standoff with the courts. Murderers and rapists are among those set to be freed.
Some of the inmates haven't had stellar inmate records. The Associated Press reported that while the inmates have received credit, they also have been cited for numerous infractions. Every inmate has had at least two, and the 20 had 256 in all.
North Carolinians should prepare themselves for the likelihood that these men and women -- and more in the future -- will be set free. And most of them still have many years of life ahead, the majority being in their 50s and 60s.
The law is the law, and the state cannot keep these people in prison if the statutes and the courts say they have fulfilled their sentences.
The origin of the release decision lies in good intentions. In 1981, the state faced a growing inmate population, one that a few years later would grow beyond the prison system's capacity.
The state parole commission was also seen as having too much discretion over who was released early. Finally, courts around the state were shown to be issuing widely disparate sentences for similar crimes. On the latter two issues, statistics showed racial minorities were not treated as well as whites.
The Fair Sentencing Act of 1981 targeted all three issues but failed regarding inmate population. Inmate numbers grew into a crisis in the mid-1980s that led to a prison-building boom, a prison cap and new laws.
The Structured Sentencing Act of 1994 eventually did away with new sentences for which parole can be granted and a lot of judicial sentencing discretion.
Today, North Carolinians must endure the act's major failing. As then-Rep. Harry Payne of Wilmington said in 1984, the act tried to treat all criminals fairly. It was based on the false assumption that crime can be homogenized, but not all criminals are alike.
Today, the sad fact is that some of the worst inmates will be free because legislators 28 years ago misjudged how to make sentencing fairer.
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