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At the end of the 1980s, North Carolina faced circumstances familiar to Californians today – a broken parole system, overcrowded prisons and jails, and the specter of a federal takeover of the state's prisons.
The North Carolina General Assembly responded by creating the Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission, a bipartisan body with a full-time professional staff, and charged it with a mandate to monitor, study and recommend modifications to the state's sentencing policies, as well as to develop a comprehensive strategy for community-based alternatives to prison. The commission reflected the Legislature's commitment to a fresh, rational and evidence-based approach to sentencing.
After three years of study and debate, the commission recommended a sentencing structure based on a classification of the state's criminal offenses by the harm caused and of criminal offenders by their prior criminal history.
A key to reform was the commission's development of a computer simulation model allowing it to project the state's prison population a decade into the future and to assess the impact of any subsequent policy change proposed by the Legislature, based on accurate data.
Armed with the simulation model, a professional staff, and access to data from the relevant state agencies, the commission helped to bring truth, consistency and clarity to the state's sentencing practices, and restored the balance between sentencing policies and correctional resources.
Sentencing commissions in North Carolina and elsewhere bring to bear the expertise that exists across the criminal justice system and the community at large on the complex issues that surround criminal punishment. Commission members typically represent a range of diverse perspectives, interests and methods. Such diversity of viewpoints is crucial to the quality of the commission's work and its credibility as a policy-making body.
Legislating on matters of crime and punishment is often driven by emotion or political expediency rather than by thoughtful, rational analysis of the overall body of evidence, data and a state's available resources. Because sentencing commissions are somewhat insulated from the political pressures felt by lawmakers, the members can facilitate the making of hard choices before a crisis arises or when one already exists.
The guidelines recommended by the Sentencing Commission of North Carolina were enacted into law in 1994 and remain in place today. The state has experienced substantially less growth in its prison population than have states without sentencing commissions. Violent offenders are more likely to go to prison for longer periods of time, while nonviolent offenders are managed in less expensive community punishment programs.
According to the Pew Center on the States, North Carolina boasts the second lowest incarceration rate in the South, devoting just 5.7 percent of its general fund to corrections in 2007, in contrast to California's 8.6 percent. Nor have these benefits come at the cost of public safety. Since 1994, North Carolina has seen a marked reduction in its overall crime rate – and in the rates of violent and property crimes – according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
As California works to resolve its current challenges, its lawmakers would be wise to consider a sentencing commission as a crucial component of successful reform.
Thomas W. Ross is president of Davidson College. He is a former North Carolina Superior Court judge and founding chairman of the North Carolina Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission. David Lagos is a research associate for the North Carolina Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission.
