{"id":2126,"date":"2011-04-24T18:58:09","date_gmt":"2011-04-24T22:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/04\/sentence-reform-in-georgia.html"},"modified":"2011-04-24T18:58:09","modified_gmt":"2011-04-24T22:58:09","slug":"sentence-reform-in-georgia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/04\/sentence-reform-in-georgia.html","title":{"rendered":"Sentence reform in Georgia?"},"content":{"rendered":"AP wrote 22 April 2011,\n\nDeal signs measure creating sentence reform panel<\/a>:\n
\n\n<\/a>\nGov. Nathan Deal signed legislation Friday [House Bill 265] that would create a panel to\nstudy Georgia’s criminal justice system with an eye toward overhauling\nthe state’s tough sentencing laws.\n

\nThe laws have left the state with overcrowded prisons and taxpayers with\nan annual corrections bill that tops $1 million.\n

\nThe legislation creates a 13-member commission that would study\nsentencing reforms in hopes of offering alternative sentences for some\ndrug addicts and other nonviolent offenders. The panel would have to\nreport its findings by early 2012, in time for lawmakers to act on them\nin the next legislative session.\n<\/blockquote>\nThat annual bill has to be more than $1 million;\nmaybe $1 billion.\n

\nAnyway, Georgia seems to be discovering what Texas already\ndid some\nyears ago: we can’t afford to lock up so many people.\n

\nThe high incarceration rate comes with high costs. Georgia pays $3,800\neach year to educate a child in public schools, and $18,000 every year\nto keep each inmate behind bars, Deal said.\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nWhat will we do with them instead?\n

\nHall County is one of several counties that have adopted drug\ncourts, which aim to provide alternative sentences for low-level drug\noffenders. At the ceremony, drug court graduation Mike Wilcoxson said\nthe program changed his life.\n

\n“One thing drug court has done for me is give me a sense of purpose\nin my life, to set goals for myself, to be accountable for my actions,\nand to break the cycle of addiction I had,” Wilcoxson said.\n<\/blockquote>\nThat’s one solution.\n

\nAnd if we’re not going to lock up so many people,\nwhy do we need to build a private prison in Lowndes County?\n

\n-jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"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 […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1113,72,178],"tags":[8817,77,8705,243,8701,4645,8730,7,46,75,82],"class_list":["post-2126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cca","category-incarceration","category-vlcia","tag-cca","tag-drugs","tag-education","tag-gainesville","tag-georgia","tag-hall-county","tag-incarceration","tag-lowndes-county","tag-nathan-deal","tag-prison","tag-war-on-drugs"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-yi","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2126\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}