Every Crime Is Born of Necessity

Every crime is born of necessity. If you want less crime, you must change the conditions. Poverty often creates crime. Wants, needs, misfortune - all these awaken the beast in man. He finally takes that which is not his and thus a criminal is born.

What does society do with this person? He is punished. Why not punish someone for having a medical condition? The time will surface when one will see that this thought is just as logical! What does society do with this criminal?

The criminal is sent into the state prison system - one that is already overcrowded with many repeat offenders. In Utah, (and several other states), this criminal is sentenced, by the justice system to a yet to be determined sentence. The legislature has ruled that the pronouncement of sentencing should be taken away from the presiding judge and jury and given to a board of appointed people. These people do not know the case as well as the judge, who has sat through all of the preliminary hearings and days of trial. There are five people who, after a hearing officer meets with the offender, make a decision on the criminal’s fate. Now these five board members do not meet as a group to make this decision. They are sent the file of the offender and they sign off as to what the sentence should be.

Something is very wrong with this Indeterminate Sentencing. These five people, six if you include the hearing officer, only have in front of them a file. With the number of offenders coming before the Board of Pardons in any given week, this is a daunting task to say the least. How can it be humanly possible for these people to read each and every file that comes before them? I say it is humanly IMPOSSIBLE!

Some of the offenders who appear at their original hearing are first time offenders. Some of these offenders have already served more than the recommended time to serve. There is a matrix that is used by the Adult Parole and Probation office. Based on several criteria, the AP&P officer makes their recommendation. Again, this recommendation is based on published criteria that all officers are bound by law to follow. These same criteria are used by the Court. Every offender has a Pre-Sentencing Investigation done by AP&P. Based on this PSI, the Court has a baseline. Now, the legislature has set criteria also. Depending on the seriousness of the charges, the Court will sentence the offender to the range of possible term; i.e. a Second Degree Felony will be sentenced to one to Fifteen years.

Now the offender, and their family, has to wait to see how much time will actually be served. Even though the AP&P report has given a determinate range of so many months - this is the matrix - the offender often has to wait months before they learn their fate.

With prison system crying “we are overcrowded”, does indeterminate sentencing make sense? I say it does not! Why not give the job of sentencing back to the Court instead of the “elected” officials. And I say “elected” because I wonder how many of these officials actually gain something monetarily when the prison is full and talk of building a new prison starts.

I say abolish Indeterminate Sentencing and let the one who knows the case better than anyone – the Court – make the decision!