Unfunded mandates and life sentences for drug dealers

In Corpus Christi, Judge Tom Greenwall sentenced a 23-year old to life in prison over a drug dealing charge, citing his criminal history including several burglaries and a separate drug case, as well as a federal firearms conviction in March. Sentences like this make me wonder, if we now dole out "life" sentences for drug charges doesn't that a) demean the gravity of the punishment and b) work against the state's long-term economic interest?

Even if life in this instance means eligible for parole in 30-40 years, that's still a decision to remove this fellow from society for the entirety of his productive life over nonviolent offenses committed in his youth. So the state pays his full freight whereas on the outside world his economic activity, including property and sales taxes, would contribute to state coffers.

Nobody's saying it wasn't time for this kid to go take a long, state-sponsored timeout. But a "life" sentence is done for the public relations benefit, not because keeping him in a minimum of 30-40 years makes us safer than 20. (The parole board still must evaluate him for release, in either case.) Serving a 15 year sentence would begin to age him out of the prime, youthful crime committing demographic, after which, over time, the likelihood of new offenses declines.

Grits has argued for ratcheting down drug sentences one notch across the board in large part because of the effect on the state budget by reducing incarceration for low-level drug offenders. But while cost savings for offenders on the low end most affect the short-term budget, the long-term budget savings would be even more important, reducing judges and juries discretion to issue "send a message" sentences on nonviolent offenses. Just as grades lose their meaning with grade inflation, punishment gradients lose their meaning when a petty 23-year old drug dealer and a murderer get the same one.

We hear lots of commotion about "unfunded mandates" from the state to local governments, which I agree can be a serious problem. But far less often acknowledged is that, in the criminal justice system, arguably the biggest, most important unfunded mandate runs in the other direction: TDCJ's budget is mostly spent on fulfilling imprisonment obligations dictated by local sentences, whether from plea bargains or set by judges or juries. They can't control those sentence lengths or in the case of life sentences, even consider parole before decades have passed. As he ages, this offeder's health care expenses will grow; costs after he's 55 will be triple that when he's young.

Of course the Legislature owns most of the blame. They pass these draconian sentences, but the Legislative Budget Board does not require them to include their cost in the budget. So local prosecutors, judges and juries aggressively use those sentencing options, the prison budget predictably bloats, then when TDCJ is forced to parole some violent offender (to make room for this guy), they're criticized for not engaging in "Truth in Sentencing." But the reason there's no truth in sentencing is there's no truth in sentencing budgets. The Legislature passed laws with sentences more draconian than it can afford to pay for.

Constantly "enhancing" penalties without paying for it in the budget means TDCJ has no choice but to release more prisoners than ever - more than 70,000 per year, at last count. Texas now releases more prisoners every year than were even locked up at any one time during Ann Richards' tenure. Think about that: Texas releases prisoners every year in numbers so great they're greater than the whole prison system 20 years ago. We deal in volume now, and the state can't afford to process such lengthy sentences for nonviolent offenders in any significant number without either building new prisons we can't afford or stuffing more prisoners into units than they're designed for, which is what brought down federal litigation on California. That's the nature of "unfunded mandates," though; they don't give you any choice.