SB 91-OMNIBUS CRIM LAW & PROCEDURE; CORRECTIONS  2:17:34 PM CHAIR MCGUIRE announced the consideration of SSSB 91. [This was the first hearing and CSSSSB 91(STA) was before the committee.] 2:17:38 PM SENATOR JOHN COGHILL, Alaska State Legislature, Juneau, Alaska, sponsor of SB 91, introduced the legislation speaking to the following sponsor statement: Senate Bill 91 implements proven practices to reduce recidivism, keep Alaskans safe, hold offenders accountable, and control corrections spending. Increased spending on prisons has not brought Alaskans greater public safety: nearly two out of every three inmates who leave prison return to prison within three years. The high rate of recidivism has significantly increased Department of Corrections operating costs to $324 million in FY 2016, and spurred the opening of the Goose Creek Correctional Center, costing the state $240 million in construction funds.   Alaska Criminal Justice Commission  Seeking a better public safety return on our state's corrections spending, the legislature established the Alaska Criminal Justice Commission. The Commission included legislators, judges, law enforcement officers, prosecutors, defenders, corrections officials, and members representing crime victims and Alaska Natives. The Commission spent over a year conducting an exhaustive review of the state's pretrial, sentencing, corrections, and community supervision data and systems. SB 91 Incorporates the Commission's Recommendations  The Commission developed a package of consensus recommendations that will reduce the state's daily prison population by 21 percent over the next 10 years, saving the state $424 million. SB 91 aims to: · Implement evidence-based pretrial practices by expanding the use of citations in lieu of arrest for lower-level nonviolent offenses; and making changes to bail practices to focus pretrial release decisions more on risk than on ability to pay. · Focus prison beds on serious and violent offenders by diverting nonviolent misdemeanor offenders to alternatives; revising drug crime penalties; adjusting dollar amounts for felony property crimes to account for inflation; realigning sentence ranges in statute, expanding and streamlining parole; and incentivizing sex offenders to complete treatment programming. · Strengthen probation and parole supervision by standardizing sanctions for violations of probation and parole conditions to ensure they are swift, certain, and proportional; establishing incentives to comply with supervision conditions; and focusing treatment resources on high-needs offenders. · Improve opportunities for successful reentry by offering limited licenses to eligible revoked offenders; creating a reentry program within the Department of Corrections; and opting out of the federal ban on food stamps for people convicted of drug crimes. Reinvest a portion of the savings from these reforms into evidence-based practices designed to improve public safety, control corrections populations, and reduce recidivism, including supervision services, victims' services, violence prevention, treatment services, and reentry services.  Cost of Doing Nothing: $169 Million  Alaska's prison population grew 27 percent in the last decade, nearly three times faster than the resident population. At this rate, the Department of Corrections projects the need to house an additional 1,416 inmates by 2024, which will cost the state at least $169 million in new spending. With the disappointing recidivism rates and public safety outcomes the state has been achieving, the cost of doing nothing is too high. 2:27:29 PM JORDAN SHILLING, Staff, Senator John Coghill, responding to a question from the sponsor, reported that 95 percent of offenders will return to their communities. 2:28:34 PM SENATOR COGHILL informed the committee that in an effort to turn the corner on recidivism the Speaker of the House, Governor, and Chief Justice of the Alaska Supreme Court wrote letters to the PEW Charitable Trusts ("PEW") requesting technical help looking at Alaska recidivism statistics compared to other states. He said they brought statistics that many hadn't seen before and he believes "we're looking at ourselves in a very new way." He noted that there was some pushback but it wasn't unexpected. He reviewed the following key findings: · The pretrial inmate population has grown 81 percent in the last decade. · Half of the pretrial defendants are detained on nonviolent charges, including misdemeanors. · The bail system is tied to money, not risk. · 28 percent of the prison population is pretrial. · The length of stay for felonies rose 31 percent over the last decade. · 75 percent of offenders entering prison were convicted of a nonviolent crime. · 20 percent of the population are incarcerated for technical violations. 2:30:59 PM SENATOR MICCICHE joined the committee. SENATOR COGHILL noted that the Alaska Criminal Justice Commission annual report to the legislature on page 10 lists the 21 recommendations to decrease corrections costs and protect public safety. He directed attention to the color-coded sheet in the packet that cross references the bill section with the list of recommended policies for the categories of pretrial, sentencing, community supervision, and other. He mentioned the pretrial category and the policy called "citation versus arrest" that is addressed in Sections 33-35. Additional pretrial policies are "risk-based release decision making," and "pretrial supervision." He noted that pretrial supervision will be part of the reinvestment that will cost money and require different treatment of prison beds. SENATOR COGHILL listed the recommended policies in the sentencing category for "misdemeanors," "controlled substances," "felony theft threshold," "presumptive ranges," "discretionary parole/administrative parole," "geriatric parole," and "sex offender treatment." CHAIR MCGUIRE clarified that a series of U.S. Supreme Court decisions affect what the state legislature has had to do to comport with those opinions. She mentioned the Blakely vs. Washington ruling that said presumptive sentences were okay and mandatory minimum sentences could be held at a higher level. She asked the sponsor to explain the interplay with Blakely and whether or not this bill would challenge that ruling. SENATOR COGHILL, speaking to the presumptive sentencing provisions in Sections 67-69, said those ranges could probably be moved to a mid range but aggravators and mitigators would still have to be argued at sentencing. CHAIR MCGUIRE added that states that had the circumstances of aggravators and mitigators had to have a separate trial unless they were a tenet of the original sentencing. She asked Mr. Shilling to discuss the proposed policy for controlled substances in sentencing. 2:42:01 PM MR. SHILLING explained that the commission recommended two aspects of sentencing related to drugs. One is related to commercial drug delivery/dealing and the other is related to simple drug possession. Existing law does not differentiate between a high-level and low-level drug dealer so the commission recommended creating a 2.5 gram weight threshold to differentiate the two. Dealing above 2.5 grams of certain substances would be a higher level felony and dealing below the 2.5 gram threshold would be a lower level felony. The goal is to differentiate between the drug trafficker and someone who presumably is selling to support their habit. For simple possession, the commission recommended creating a 2.5 gram weight threshold. CHAIR MCGUIRE asked how the sponsor arrived at the 2.5 gram threshold. She also asked if he had any comment on the disproportionate and potentially discriminatory sentencing for users of crack cocaine versus powder cocaine. Arguably, people in a lower economic class would use crack, whereas a white collar criminal would be more likely to use powder cocaine. MR. SHILLING said the 2.5 gram threshold is admittedly arbitrary, but the original recommendation was a 5 gram threshold. He admitted that there are incongruences when all drugs are considered together and a weight threshold is established. He suggested the committee might want to look at that to try and diminish the incongruities. SENATOR COGHILL suggested the committee deal with each category of the bill separately, preferably in the order mentioned previously. CHAIR MCGUIRE said she likes the idea of dividing the bill in the four major areas of "pretrial," "sentencing," "community supervision," and "other." Public testimony would open once the committee has a solid understanding of what the bill does in each of the categories and the controversial areas have been flagged. She asked future testifiers to point to the specific provisions they have concerns with and avoid generalizations. She relayed her intention to spend two weeks on the bill and send it along to the Finance Committee in perfect legal form. She noted that she flagged the weight threshold and stated her preference to consider dosage and usage. SENATOR COGHILL reviewed his approach to consider the bill and suggested the committee rely heavily on the Department of Law, the Public Defender, and the Court System to understand how the bill will work in practice. 2:49:58 PM SENATOR COGHILL explained that the community supervision category includes policy recommendations for graduated sanctions/incentives, cap in technical violation stays, probation earned credit, maximum probation terms, good-time on electronic monitoring, and CRCs - halfway houses. SENATOR MICCICHE requested a copy of the sponsor's crib notes. CHAIR MCGUIRE requested the crib notes and a document showing the changes between the original bill and the State Affairs committee substitute. SENATOR COGHILL discussed the policy recommendations for limited driver's license, administrative license revocations, food stamps, public assistance, re-entry program, community work, limiting pretrial credit to 120 days, suspended entry of judgment, and victim's rights, all of which are in the "other" category. He noted that the State Affairs Committee inserted a provision requiring a drug and alcohol test to qualify for public assistance. He said he doesn't know if it's constitutional, but any number of jobs require similar testing as a matter of public safety. He opined that there shouldn't be a privacy issue. 2:54:36 PM CHAIR MCGUIRE said it's an equal protection under the law issue and she'll be looking for the nexus and equal application. SENATOR COGHILL indicated he was open to the discussion. He asked Mr. Shilling to supplement the discussion on community work. 2:57:24 PM MR. SHILLING described the two aspects to the community work service change. One is to prevent the conversion of community work service hours to prison time. The commission felt it was odd that there was a non-incarceration option that could be converted to incarceration. There was some thought that the state shouldn't pay for someone to spend 10-15 days in prison simply because they couldn't or didn't want to complete their community work service. The second aspect is if there is an indigent offender who is required to pay a fine, there is an option in statute for them to work off the fine. Existing statute says $3 and the bill links the work to the minimum wage. CHAIR MCGUIRE asked if restitution could be included. MR. SHILLING said he would look into that. SENATOR COGHILL asked Mr. Shilling to speak to limiting pretrial credit to 120 days. MR. SHILLING explained that the provision to cap the pretrial credit to 120 days was at the request of the Office of Victims' Rights. Anecdotal reports were that the day-for-day jail credit equivalency for spending time on electronic monitoring created an incentive for defendants to delay their trial in perpetuity to get that credit. SENATOR COGHILL asked Mr. Shilling to discuss the suspended entry of judgment. MR. SHILLING explained that it is very similar to the existing suspended imposition of sentence. A person admits their guilt and if they successfully complete some programs, their conviction is set aside. The major difference is the judgment wouldn't be entered in the first place and would provide some record confidentiality upon completion of the SIJ. SENATOR COGHILL added that the case will be viewable on CourtView while the case is active, which was a request of the Office of Victims' Rights. 3:02:07 PM CHAIR MCGUIRE thanked the sponsor and his staff and held SB 91 in committee.