The Indiana General Assembly’s stab at truth in sentencing will lead to more criminals on the streets and more criminals doing time in local jails, area law enforcement professionals say.
State sentencing guidelines are changing dramatically effective Tuesday.
Currently, nontraffic-related criminal offenses are categorized into felonies and misdemeanors, with the more serious felony-level charges further broken down into Class A felonies, the most serious, down to Class D felonies.
Beginning Tuesday, the more serious crimes will be categorized as Class 1, Class 2, Class 3, Class 4, Class 5 and Class 6 offenses.
Area prosecutors say the most dramatically affected areas of the law will involve drug offenses. The severity of drug offenses has been watered down, according to DeKalb County Prosecutor ClaraMary Winebrenner and Noble County Prosecutor Steve Clouse.
Manufacturing methamphetamine, for example, is currently a Class B felony with a sentencing range of six to 20 years. Under the new level, that same offense is a Level 4 crime, punishable from two to 12 years.
Lawmakers also stripped away most of the mandatory-jail-time portions of sentences, meaning a judge could decide to have an entire term served on probation.
“The Legislature decided they didn’t want to throw drug users and drug dealers into jail,” Winebrenner said in summing up the changes.
Money had to at least be one factor in the move, Clouse said.
“The criminal justice system is expensive,” Clouse said. “It just is.”
Legislators did mandate that offenders serve 75 percent of their sentences for the more serious levels of crimes. Currently, many offenders are given good-behavior credits that allow them to serve roughly half of their prison sentences incarcerated.
But with the sentencing ranges watered down, offenders actually will being doing less time.
Authorities say the changes in drug-sentencing laws will have a negative impact.
“The community will see more offenders in the community,” Clouse said.
Reducing the punishment for drug offenses will limit the deterrent effect, make finding confidential informants more difficult, and will inhibit the ability to treat meth addicts, the prosecutors predict.
Winebrenner said someone manufacturing meth, for example, needs a lengthy period of incarceration so he or she has time to have the drug completely out of the body. After that, they need a lengthy time of intense supervision to aid in recovery. Because supervision time and jail time are part of the shorter sentence, there isn’t enough time to help people from going back to meth.
With fewer years to serve, even if given the maximum sentence, there will be less reason for offenders to make deals.
Steuben County Sheriff Tim Troyer said putting drug criminals on the streets sooner will have a ripple effect.
“More street-level drug dealing will have an impact in the form of increases in many other crimes,” Troyer said.
The new sentencing guidelines will see more people given shorter sentences, and shorter sentences mean more people serving time in county jails. That could lead to higher costs for counties, including more medical expenses.
“Steuben County is currently a 178-bed facility,” Troyer said. “Our average daily population has been around 110, which is low. If the jail population increases to 135 or more, we will have to hire more confinement officers to maintain a safe inmate-to-officer ratio.”
With jail crowding an issue, Clouse and Winebrenner predict an increase in the use of alternatives to incarceration.
“Community supervision programs will need to expand to accommodate the number of people,” Clouse said.
Another area of concern for law enforcement is changes to theft statutes.
Currently, taking something as small as a candy bar is a Class D felony. Come Tuesday, any theft involving items worth less than $750 will be a misdemeanor crime — as long as it is a first offense.
Winebrenner said she is more concerned with how to properly file charges than she is with sentencing at this point.
New classifications of crimes mean new charging information. Factors that enhance the severity of crimes also have changed. As of Wednesday, she had changed approximately 300 of the forms officers in DeKalb County use to fill out as charging slips.