INDIANAPOLIS —State lawmakers will take another look at revising Indiana's criminal sentencing laws in a study committee this summer.
Though the General Assembly did not enact any of Gov. Mitch Daniels' recommendations during the four-month session that ended in April, Daniels said he plans to make them a focal point in 2012, as well.
A summer study committee would set the table for such action.
In 2010, two nonpartisan national think tanks recommended a series of changes to Indiana's sentencing structure that would involve shifting low-level drug and theft offenders out of the prison population and into community-based programs.
That would free up more than $1 billion over the next decade that the state would otherwise have to spend building new prisons, the Pew Center on the States and the Council of State Governments Justice Center said.
The six-month study found that sentences doled out by Indiana judges and the crimes they're for are often uneven. It found that Indiana often hands down harsher punishments for low-level crimes than other states and recommended sweeping changes to that sentencing structure.
That led Daniels, Indiana Chief Justice Randall Shepard and a host of others to endorse those reforms headed into the 2011 session.
But the Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys Council cast those changes as soft on crime, and argued that they should be accompanied by tougher sentences for those convicted of murder and other high-level crimes.
That, the Daniels administration said, would wipe out the cost savings that would have come with the extra prison space. Therefore, the topic was scuttled for the session.
Daniels said he thinks the two sides were close when the General Assembly adjourned for the year on April 29. He said he thinks the summer will provide an opportunity to smooth out the remainder of those differences and put the topic on more solid footing headed into 2012.
That's one of several topics that the Legislative Council, a group made of House and Senate leadership, assigned to study committees that will meet through the summer and fall.
"I am pleased that the legislature is already beginning work on such important issues to prepare for the 2012 legislative session," said House Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis.
"These committees will lay the foundation for much of the legislation that will come before the General Assembly next year."
Other topics include:
Right to work: This issue was the flashpoint of the five-week House Democratic walkout during the 2011 session. Lawmakers will study its effects, as well as what changes they might make to project labor agreements.
Redistricting: Though the once-a-decade legislative map-making process was completed this year, lawmakers will talk this summer about whether Indiana should shift the duties out of the General Assembly's hand and to an independent commission.
Economic development: One panel will be tasked with following up on a host of measures that passed during the 2011 session, and gauging ways that lawmakers could further incentivize new business operations.
Education: A committee will track practices in other states that have led to higher graduation rates in order to see what ideas Indiana might adopt.