Tag Archives: Nathan Deal

Sentence reform in Georgia?

AP wrote 22 April 2011,

Deal signs measure creating sentence reform panel:



Gov. Nathan Deal signed legislation Friday [House Bill 265] that would create a panel to
study Georgia’s criminal justice system with an eye toward overhauling
the state’s tough sentencing laws.

The laws have left the state with overcrowded prisons and taxpayers with
an annual corrections bill that tops $1 million.

The legislation creates a 13-member commission that would study
sentencing reforms in hopes of offering alternative sentences for some
drug addicts and other nonviolent offenders. The panel would have to
report its findings by early 2012, in time for lawmakers to act on them
in the next legislative session.

That annual bill has to be more than $1 million;
maybe $1 billion.

Anyway, Georgia seems to be discovering what Texas already
did some
years ago: we can’t afford to lock up so many people.

The high incarceration rate comes with high costs. Georgia pays $3,800
each year to educate a child in public schools, and $18,000 every year
to keep each inmate behind bars, Deal said.

What will we do with them instead?

Hall County is one of several counties that have adopted drug
courts, which aim to provide alternative sentences for low-level drug
offenders. At the ceremony, drug court graduation Mike Wilcoxson said
the program changed his life.

“One thing drug court has done for me is give me a sense of purpose
in my life, to set goals for myself, to be accountable for my actions,
and to break the cycle of addiction I had,” Wilcoxson said.

That’s one solution.

And if we’re not going to lock up so many people,
why do we need to build a private prison in Lowndes County?

-jsq

Ecological value of Georgia Forests –Georgia Farm Monitor



Georgia Farm Monitor posts its TV episodes on YouTube, including this one,

Forestry Adds Huge Amount To Georgia’s Economy,
starring

Wesley Langdale of The Langdale Company
and

Chuck Leavell of the Rolling Stones (both tree farmers)
announcing $37 billion economic value of Georgia forest ecology:

Continue reading →

State needs to rethink locking up nonviolent offenders –Nathan Deal

Conservative Georgia governor Deal wants fewer people in prison,
discovering, like Texas before, that Georgia can’t afford it.
Jim Galloway reported in the AJC 17 Jan 2011,

Georgia Gov: Drug court offers good alternative
Cost of crime and punishment is high on new governor Nathan Deal’s list:

Georgia Governor Nathan Deal has said that violent offenders will remain
behind bars, but the state needs to rethink the costs of locking up
others, like nonviolent drug offenders.

Last May we noted that
Georgia spends a billion dollars a year to keep the fourth-largest
number of prisoners of any state.
Now that the state is cutting every other budget,
including huge cuts in education, we just can’t afford
to lock so many people up.



The number of people locked up

has grown way faster than violent crime since 1980.
The U.S.,
with 5% of the world’s populatioon now has 25% of
the world’s prison population:
more than any other country total and per capita:
more than China, more than Russia, more than Cuba.
As Sen. James Webb remarked in 2009:

Continue reading →