INDIANAPOLIS – As heroin use surges, local prosecutors are pressing to restore tough penalties for drug dealers and users, less than two years after sentencing laws were relaxed to clear prisons of drug offenders.
Dustin Houchin, prosecuting attorney in Washington County, cited cases across the state where some people charged with dealing heroin now face just a year in prison – not enough, he said, to set them straight.
“That just strikes me as fundamentally too low for someone selling poison to people in my community,” said Houchin. His rural county, like other areas, has seen a surge in heroin overdoses in the past two years.
Last year, lawmakers reformed sentencing laws to toughen penalties for violent crimes but reduced punishment for most drug offenses.
That came after decades of ratcheting up prison terms in response to concerns over drugs -- a trend that inflated the state's prison population. Before last year, for example, someone caught with three ounces of cocaine faced more time in prison than someone convicted of rape or armed robbery.
Proponents of reform said it restored sentencing to fit the crime.
“The penalties were so far out of whack, they made no sense,” said Larry Landis, who advocated for the changes as head of the Indiana Public Defender Council.
Even then, prosecutors worried the reform went too far. They objected to giving judges more discretion over sentences and ending mandatory terms for certain crimes.
Prior to 2014, for example, an adult convicted of selling heroin to a minor went to prison for 20 years - a term that couldn't be altered by a judge. That mandatory time is now gone.
Prosecutors concede it’s too soon to know the full impact of the changes. But they've found that people convicted in higher-level drug-dealing cases after the reforms are serving almost two years less time.
Landis says that was the intent. “We wanted shorter drug sentences, and that’s what we’ve got,” he said.
But prosecutors say shorter sentences rob them of leverage - the threat of longer sentences - in plea negotiations that force drug users into treatment.
“We’ve got addicts who’d rather be incarcerated than go into treatment,” said Bruce Embry, the Miami County prosecuting attorney. “They say, ‘I’ll take my jail time.’”
Embry and other prosecutors say public safety is at stake. Watered-down penalties don't take dealers off the streets, they argue, leading to more violence and crime.
Landis rejects that notion, citing research from the Pew Charitable Trusts and other sources that finds tougher penalties do little to reduce drug use or crime.
“Putting people in prison for their drug use doesn’t work,” he said.
How lawmakers react to the pressure from prosecutors remains to be seen.
They return to the Statehouse in January, for a 90-day “short session,” with an already full agenda. And some may be reluctant to tamper with last year's sentencing reform bill, which was five years in the making and runs more than 500 pages.
Portions of it, including a piece that keeps the lowest level drug offenders out of prison, are still being rolled out.
“It would be a tough fight. There will be some lawmakers who say, 'Let’s leave it alone until we can see how it works,'” said Sen. Randy Head, R-Logansport, who added that he sympathizes with the prosecutors’ arguments.
But political currents may be changing.
In September, Gov. Mike Pence called for tougher penalties when he appointed a task force to combat drug abuse. He cited rising heroin deaths and drug-related cases of child abuse and neglect.
On the House side, one of sentencing reform's biggest champions is now gone. Former House majority leader, Rep. Jud McMillin, R-Brookville, who chaired the Courts and Criminal Code Committee up until late last year, resigned in late September after the release of a sex video from his stolen phone.
The current committee chairman, Rep. Tom Washburne, R-Princeton, is now the key gatekeeper for sentencing laws in the House.
Washburne said he's reluctant to predict what will happen, but he foresees a “surgical strike” to toughen penalties for those caught dealing heroin.
Such a measure has already been promised by state Sen. Jim Merritt, R-Indianapolis, an advocate of more treatment for heroin users and tougher penalties for dealers.
But Washburne noted that lawmakers, in overhauling the criminal code, strongly signaled a new approach in fighting drug abuse.
“There are some problems that a change in the criminal sentencing code can’t fix,” he said. “In the drug realm, the rationale used to be, if we make drug penalties harder, you make the drug problem go away. We’ve learned that’s not true.”