Dec 23, 2019 2 min read

With a few exceptions, a package of criminal justice reform bills that have passed the state House Judiciary Committee with strong bipartisan majorities would improve the overall fairness of the system while reducing its massive costs to taxpayers.

Each state prison inmate now costs Pennsylvania taxpayers more than $42,000 a year, so it is in the interest of inmates and taxpayers to drive down the recidivism rate as a means of reducing the size of the prison population.

The reform package aims to do so through changes to the parole and probation system and by making it easier for people released from prison to find jobs.

Under current rules, former prisoners can be returned to prison for minor parole violations. One new bill would allow returns to prison only if the former prisoner commits a crime or violates the most serious parole conditions.

One of the principal drivers of recidivism is the inability of released prisoners to find jobs. The package would make that easier by creating a readily accessible database of employers who hire former prisoners, eliminating obstacles in state law to obtaining the state occupational licenses that are required for some jobs, and authorizing sealing the records of people who are acquitted or unconditionally pardoned.

Unfortunately, one of the measures that passed is not a reform and should be defeated by the full House or the Senate, or vetoed by Gov. Tom Wolf if its passes the Legislature. It would double down on mandatory minimum sentences for some crimes. Mandatory minimums are a major cause of the national mass incarceration problem and its attendant costs, and they preclude each case from being handled according to its unique circumstances.

In a tribute to the bipartisan nature of the reform movement, two representatives – Republican Paul Schemel of Greencastle, Franklin County, and Democrat Christopher Rabb of Philadelphia – voted against the mandatory minimum sentence bill.

“We have judges. We have sentencing guidelines. We should let them do their work,” Schemel said. He is right.

The package should be tweaked in some other areas, including the elimination of a provision that allows judges to deny parolees the right to use medically prescribed marijuana.

But overall, the package is a sound step toward a fairer and more cost-effective criminal justice system.