Prison reform measures amended, advanced
A bill addressing prison overcrowding was amended and advanced from general file April 14.
Introduced by Omaha Sen. Heath Mello, LB605 would make numerous changes to Nebraska’s penal system. Mello said the policy changes were recommended to the Nebraska Justice Reinvestment Working Group—created by LB907 in 2014—through a report provided by the Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center.
These changes would include:
• requiring the Office of Parole Administration to establish a process to determine the risk a parolee may pose to a community and the level of supervision required;
• creating the Committee on Justice Reinvestment Oversight to develop and review Nebraska’s criminal justice policies;
• requiring that all sentences of one year or more be served in a state prison and sentences less than one year be served in a county jail;
• appropriating $30,000 to the Nebraska Supreme Court to create a sentencing information database;
• adding a new felony classification and penalties; and
• updating property offense amount thresholds to account for inflation.
The bill also addresses how probation violations would be punished, rates for restitution payments and how criminal history information would be disseminated.
Nebraska’s prisons currently are at 159 percent capacity and are estimated to be at 170 percent capacity by 2020, Mello said. Following the guidelines suggested in the report would increase public safety by better preparing inmates for reentry into society, he said, and save the state the $260 million otherwise needed to build a new prison.
Simply adding more prison capacity would not address the causes of overcrowding, he said, making that option only a short-term solution.
“Temporary measures and band-aid solutions are no longer a viable option,” Mello said.
A Judiciary Committee amendment, adopted 32-4, replaced the bill. Amended and new provisions include:
• requiring the Board of Parole to create regulations to reduce the number of offenders released from prison without supervision;
• requiring the board and state Department of Correctional Services to annually report the number of offenders on unsupervised release to the Legislature, governor and Supreme Court;
• requiring the department and Probation Administration to prepare a post-release supervision plan for each offender released on probation;
• requiring the department and state Court Administrator to create regulations regarding restitution payment and requiring the department to report annually to the Legislature on the collection of restitution from inmate wage funds; and
• increasing the maximum compensation from $10,000 to $25,000 allowed from the Victim Compensation Fund.
The amendment also incorporated provisions of LB12, introduced by Omaha Sen. Bob Krist, which would require the state Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Correctional Services to ensure that a medical assistance program is suspended rather than terminated when an individual enters a public institution.
Seiler offered an amendment to the committee amendment, adopted 36-4, which contained provisions based on LB483. That bill, introduced by Lincoln Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks, would require that the minimum sentence limit imposed by the court be no more than one-third of the maximum sentence limit.
Omaha Sen. Burke Harr supported the amendments and the bill, saying that prison overcrowding caused the problems found by the special investigative committee established by LR424 in 2014.
“What was found going on in our prisons is an absolute embarrassment to our state,” Harr said.
Revising Nebraska’s sentencing structure by sending nonviolent offenders to county jail or diversion programs would address both prison overcrowding and out-of-date statutes, he said.
“This bill is not prison reform—it is a sentencing reform,” Harr said.
Sen. Bob Krist of Omaha also supported the amended bill. Inmates who are released into communities directly from solitary confinement or without supervision place the public at risk, he said.
“This happens because we don’t have a [supervised release] process on the back end,” Krist said.
Omaha Sen. Beau McCoy questioned whether provisions for indeterminate sentencing included in the bill adhered closely enough to the recommendations made by the CSG.
“I find it troubling … that we would buy into the CSG report and now add something to the bill they can’t model for,” McCoy said.
Senators advanced the bill on a 35-3 vote.
