Action Alert on the Judiciary Committee's Criminal Justice Bill

July 24, 2008

Dear Friends,

Yesterday the Joint Committee on the Judiciary polled its members on reporting a criminal justice bill which addresses a number of Public Safety administrative reorganization concerns as well as issues which have been central to CJPC's focus for the past several years, among which concerns are :

· CORI Reform

· Work Release for Prisoners Serving Mandatory Minimum Drug Sentences

· Mandatory Parole for all Released Prisoners

Reducing School Zones from 1,000 feet to 100 feet and Reducing the
added Penalties for Drug Dealing in School Zones for first time offenders.

It is anticipated that this bill will be introduced on the floor of the House today's formal session which begins at 1:00 P.M. This was filed yesterday with the House as H.B. 5004 and was referred to the House Ways and Means Committee. The bill is not listed on the House Calendar for today which includes 40 pages of bills to be acted on. The leadership can ask for unanimous consent to consider the bill today, and normally the leadership will receive such consent.

The CORI coalition is encouraging supporters to go to the State House this afternoon to watch the process and show support for the CORI sections of the proposed legislation. Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM), MA chapter, is urging their supporters to support the school zone changes and the eligibility for work release, and oppose the mandatory parole for all released prisoners.

Short Summary

CORI

The provisions on CORI Reform would reduce the time for sealing criminal records to 5 years for a misdemeanor and 10 years for a felony. It would also ban employers from asking on job applications whether applicants have a criminal record, but employers can still ask this question in an actual job interview.

School Zones

The bill reduces the size of a school zone from 1,000 feet to 100 feet. It also reduces the penalty for first time school zone offenders, although the penalty for all other school zone convictions remains the same. For first time offenders:

Maximum sentence of two years (currently 15 years);
No mandatory minimum sentence (currently a 2 year mandatory sentence); and
No requirement that a school zone sentence must be added on to another sentence (currently required).

Work Release for Drug Offenders

Eligibility for work release. Prisoners who are currently serving mandatory minimum drug sentences will now be eligible to participate in work release programs. Work release programs help prisoners prepare for their return to the community.

Mandatory Parole

For a two-year trial period, any sentence for more than one year would include a mandatory period of supervision after the prisoner is released. The parole period would be limited to 25% of the maximum sentence imposed with a minimum of 9 months and maximum of 5 years for the parole period. This requirement would only apply to persons who committed crimes after the effective date of the legislation, it would not apply to anyone currently in prison.

CJPC is in the process of posting the complete text of this bill on its web site CJPC.org and will do a more detailed summary and analysis of the bill.

Sincerely,

Joel Pentlarge,
Interim Executive Director
www.cjpc.org