Ohio voters may follow Oklahoma's lead to reduce drug penalties, fund treatment

Following Oklahoma's lead, Ohio appears poised to reduce penalties for low-level drug possession (not dealing) at the ballot box. See coverage from Vox, which summarized the provisions in Prop 1 thusly:

• Prevents classifying offenses for using, possessing, or obtaining illicit drugs, such as heroin, fentanyl, cocaine, or meth, as felonies, instead requiring they be treated as misdemeanors.
• Prohibits jail or prison time for such offenses, unless it’s an individual’s third offense, or more, within two years.
• Allows individuals who were previously convicted of such offenses to ask a court to reduce their conviction to a misdemeanor.
• Aims to reduce the use of prison time for non-criminal probation violations.
• Applies financial savings to addiction treatment programs and crime victim funds.
• Allows people in prison, except those incarcerated for murder, rape, or child molestation, to seek sentence reductions up to 25 percent if they participate in rehabilitative programs, up from 8 percent under current rules.

The most recent polling shows the measure with a 48-31 advantage among Ohio voters, with 21 percent undecided. Unless every undecided voter breaks against it, when everyone else supported it by a 5-3 margin, that seems likely to pass. See coverage from the Cincinnati Enquirer, and the impressive list of supporters endorsing the measure.

With voters in red and swing states taking the lead, maybe this issue will become less scary for Texas legislators, who cannot rely on ballot initiatives to take tough decisions off their plates. The same felony-to-misdemeanor move makes loads sense for Texas, both from a fewer-prisons and a how-to-pay-for-treatment standpoint, and has for many years.

The political climate is changing in Texas regarding marijuana, and it won't take too many states' voters passing these sorts of measures before it changes on de-felonization of harder drugs. From both an economic perspective and a crime-prevention standpoint, it just makes too much darn sense.

UPDATE: Contrary to pre-election polling, this measure was defeated by a 63-37 margin.

States seek to fix broken probation systems

Looking outside Texas' borders for just a moment, let me point out a couple of notable stories from other states on the usually sleepy subject of community supervision.

An investigative report from the Boston Globe on the Massachusetts probation department found cronyism in hiring, dramatically inflated caseloads aimed at boosting state allocations, and a GPS monitoring program that was expensive and failed at most of its fundamental goals. Their risk assessment instrument labels 2/3 of defendants as "maximum" threats, far above the rates found elsewhere. An independent counsel has been appointed to investigate a situation that sounds like a complete clusterf&%k..

Meanwhile, AP has a story, "Study finds Ohio probation system fragmented," citing a study by the Council of State Government Justice Center which found that "offenders who commit minor drug and property crimes are often supervised for years, while inmates who pose a high risk to public safety are released from prison without supervision." Says AP:

California is trying to slow the so-called "churning" of inmates by better managing minor parole violators in hopes of reducing the prison population by 6,500. In Texas, parole and probation violators are sent to detention facilities outside the prison system rather than re-imprison them.

The Ohio study, to be unveiled at a daylong symposium, found that four of every 10 inmates serving short sentences have a low risk of re-offending. Two of every three committed property crimes or were drug offenders, and have two or fewer prior convictions. 

The issue of estimating risk for low-level drug and property offenders is a recurring theme in both these stories, which reminds me I still need to read (and then post on) Marc Levin's latest report (pdf) on the use of risk-assessment tools in community supervision. For such a technical subject, it's a particularly important one.

Ohio passes innocence reforms Texas sacrficed on Voter ID altar

Ohio passed some of the innocence reforms that Texas legislators sacrificed on the altar of Voter ID legislation. According to Steven Weinberg at True/Slant:

The law, known as Senate Bill 77 within the 128th General Assembly session, runs 25 pages (at least as printed from my computer).

The most important provisions accomplish this:

*When police are trying to identify suspects, the photo identification procedures and live lineups must be conducted in a double-blind manner. That means the law enforcement officer conducting the procedure does not know the identity of the suspect.

*Police agencies should record all interrogations of suspects in certain types of cases from the start to the finish. Confessions that are part of the interrogation process would thus be recorded, too.

*DNA evidence from murders and sexual assault cases would be preserved far better than before.

*DNA testing of suspects can occur during the parole phase as well as the prison phase.

In a followup post, Weinberg laments that cases predating the reforms aren't being given a second look by prosecutors and judges who instead say they prioritize finality.