Latest news with #SenateBill2128
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
North Dakota House defeats ‘truth-in-sentencing' bill promoted by attorney general
Attorney General Drew Wrigley, center, listens March 24, 2025, to testimony on a bill he supports related to criminal sentences. Law enforcement attended the hearing in support of the bill. (Kyle Martin/For the North Dakota Monitor) A divisive prison sentencing bill introduced by Attorney General Drew Wrigley's office failed in the House Thursday after more than 90 minutes of debate by lawmakers. Senate Bill 2128 sought to make sure inmates in the state prison system spend most of their sentence behind bars. This included a requirement that inmates spend at least half of their sentence in prisons before they can be eligible for a transitional center or parole. It also contained provisions that would have established steeper penalties for fleeing and assaulting law enforcement. North Dakota attorney general calls for more prison time; opponents say spend more on police Earlier this week, the House Judiciary Committee voted 9-5 to forward the bill to House Floor with a do-not-pass recommendation. The House on Thursday rejected an amendment proposed by the committee, which included language giving lawmakers the option to study parole and the state corrections during the upcoming interim session. 'This bill is trying to make too many sweeping changes too quickly,' said Rep. Nels Christianson, R-Grand Forks, who carried the bill on the floor. Opponents of the bill, which included the head of the North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, have said Wrigley's proposal would further encumber the state's already overcrowded prisons. They also said it would have prevented inmates from accessing programs that reduce recidivism and help them prepare for life outside of prison. 'The Attorney General and Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation fundamentally disagree on the facts and the solutions, and we shouldn't rush to make these sweeping changes to policy with far reaching consequences without having all the facts,' Christianson said. Proponents of the bill said the proposals would best serve the interests of the public, as well as crime victims. 'We're talking about the victim here, and the responsibility of the people in blue and brown,' said Rep. Bill Tveit, R-Hazen. The original bill was estimated to cost the state $22.7 million in the 2025-2027 biennium and another $21.3 million for the 2027-2029 budget cycle. The Senate in February passed the proposal by a 28-18 vote. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
01-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Prison sentencing bill revised, adds study of North Dakota justice system
Rep. Lawrence Klemin, R-Bismarck, leads a meeting of the House Judiciary Committee on March 24, 2025. (Kyle Martin/For the North Dakota Monitor) A committee passed amendments and removed a key provision in a contentious prison sentencing bill Monday. The House Judiciary Committee still gave Senate Bill 2128 a do-not-pass recommendation. Committee chair Rep. Lawrence Klemin, R-Bismarck, who authored some of the amendments to the bill, said it wasn't clear how the changes would affect the cost estimate of the bill. Klemin said his intention was that a new cost estimate would be generated for the bill. North Dakota attorney general calls for more prison time; opponents say spend more on police The original intent of the bill, which came from North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley's office, was to ensure that criminals housed by the North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spend more of their sentence behind bars. The fiscal note tied to the original bill estimated the cost to the state at $22.7 million in the 2025-27 biennium and $21.3 million for the following two years. North Dakota's prison system is already overcrowded and Rep. Steve Vetter, R-Grand Forks, wondered how the original bill could be workable. 'Where are these people going to go?' Vetter asked, adding that there is no plan to build more prison space. Colby Braun, director of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, has contended that the original bill would cut off access to rehabilitation programs and halfway houses. The amendments remove a key provision requiring that offenders serve at least 50% of their sentence behind bars before being eligible for a halfway house or parole. The amendments include ensuring that prisoners are eligible to go into a halfway house for the last six months of their sentences and adding money for electronic monitoring bracelets and penalties for tampering with an electronic monitoring device. The amendments passed on a 8-5 vote. A do-not-pass recommendation made by Rep. Bill Tveit, R-Hazen, passed 9-5. Tveit resisted the Klemin amendments as continuing a soft-on-crime policy and said the state can afford the costs of sending prisoners to another state if North Dakota doesn't have room. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The amended bill gives Legislative Management the option to study parole and the state corrections system. 'The parole board is a really big player and we haven't heard from them,' Klemin said. Klemin said the amended bill could be a bridge until the studies could provide legislators with more guidance. The bill still includes additional penalties for fleeing and assaulting officers. The amendments will need to be approved on the House floor. If approved the bill will likely be heard in the House Appropriations Committee next week, according to committee chair Rep. Don Vigesaa, R-Cooperstown. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
24-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
North Dakota attorney general calls for more prison time; opponents say spend more on police
North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley uses a chart March 24, 2025, to show the increase in crime in North Dakota while testifying to a legislative committee. (Kyle Martin/For the North Dakota Monitor) North Dakota's attorney general is backing a bill that will increase the time offenders spend behind bars because he says the state criminal justice system is releasing prisoners too quickly. The head of the state's Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation says the bill would deny prisoners access to treatment and education and lead to more repeat offenders. He argued spending more money on law enforcement would be a better use of taxes than locking up prisoners for longer periods of time when the state's jails and prisons are already overcrowded. Attorney General Drew Wrigley is pushing Senate Bill 2128, which he calls the truth-in-sentencing bill, as a way to reduce crime. The Senate passed the bill 28-18 despite a do-not-pass recommendation from the Senate Appropriations Committee. The bill has a fiscal note that estimates the bill will cost the state $22.7 million in the 2025-27 biennium and $21.3 million for the following two years. The House Judiciary Committee listened to nearly three hours of testimony on the bill Monday, beginning with Wrigley, who contends that the use of transition centers, or halfway houses, is essentially releasing prisoners long before their sentences are up. The bill lists crimes where offenders would have to spend at least 50% of their sentence behind bars before being eligible for a halfway house. Wrigley said the bill is not about longer sentences. 'It's about the sanctity of a judicial order,' Wrigley said, calling the correction's department's policies 'misleading.' He points to statistics from his office indicating 10 straight years of crimes against people rising across North Dakota. Wrigley said offenders in halfway houses are routinely committing additional offenses and that the bill would not strip the corrections department of its ability to offer treatment and rehabilitation programs. Braun invoked President Donald Trump, who in 2018, signed into law an act to provide more transition programs at the federal level. He said other states are also looking to North Dakota as a model, and reducing access to rehabilitation programs would be a step backward. 'The federal Bureau of Prisons is learning what we have known for years, that incentivizing behavior and programming while supporting people in their return to society increases public safety,' he said. He said a third of the treatment programs completed by prisoners were done in a transition facility, which are private facilities that have a contract with the state to provide housing and services. Braun said the prison system does not have space or staff to absorb all the offenders who would not be eligible for a transition center under Wrigley's bill. The North Dakota State's Attorney's Association has not taken a position on the bill and state's attorneys on both sides testified Monday. Dennis Ingold, a Burleigh County assistant state's attorney, and Ward County State's attorney Rozanna Larson, were in favor of the bill. Ingold says he primarily handles drug trafficking cases and is frustrated by seeing a criminal he prosecuted for a Class A felony back out in society after only about a month into a sentence. Larson said she agreed with previous state policy changes to slow down the number of people going into North Dakota jails and prisons by reducing sentences on low-level crimes. But she said now she doesn't feel like those changes are working. 'It's not helping with the safety of our communities,' she said. She said local governments have made big investments in jail space and the state will need to do so, also. 'Long term, we do have to have more space,' she said. North Dakota prisons to begin using waitlist due to lack of beds Cass County Assistant State's Attorney Robert Vallie used to work with Larson in Ward County but was on the opposite side of the issue Monday. He called Wrigley's plan to fight crime with more prison time 'seductively simplistic.' He told the committee it was an issue worthy of a legislative study, rather than spending money on the attorney general's plan with guarantee of success. Travis Finck, executive director for the North Dakota Commission on Legal Counsel for Indigents, agreed that there is no evidence that longer sentences will work. 'If we're really worried about crime increasing, … our money is better spent is by sending it to the men and women in uniform rather than building more prisons and bigger jails,' Finck said. 'We know that works.' Scott Peyton is the director of government affairs for a Virginia-based organization called Prison Fellowship. He testified that the longer prison sentences mandated nationally during the 1980s and '90s did not have the desired effect. 'The unintended consequences of Senate Bill 2128 risk creating unnecessary barriers to successful reintegration, while failing to meaningfully enhance public safety,' he said. Rep. Daniel Johnston, R-Kathryn, said it didn't appear North Dakota's corrections system was working particularly well and asked Peyton how it could work better. Peyton referred to the attorney general's crime statistics that showed a 43% clearance rate for violent crimes and property crimes. 'It's a flip of the coin, whether you will be caught committing a crime,' Peyton said. 'We know that the chance, the likelihood of being caught, is a greater deterrence than even longer sentences.' Another aspect of the bill includes increasing penalties for people who flee from an officer or assault an officer. There were several uniformed officers attending the hearing. Beulah Chief of Police Frank Senn said fleeing had become an epidemic in the state. Beulah is in Mercer County, where Sheriff's Deputy Paul Martin was killed during a high-speed chase in 2023. The committee did not act on the bill Monday. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
12-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
North Dakota's 'Truth-in-Sentencing' Bill Could Cost More Than $250 Million
A bill to reduce opportunities for early release and work programs for North Dakota inmates is advancing through the state legislature, but the steep price tag has pitted the prison system against the bill's biggest supporter—the state attorney general. Senate Bill 2128 would require violent offenders in North Dakota to serve at least 85 percent of their sentences in prison—a so-called "truth-in-sentencing" provision—before they could be eligible for release to a halfway house or other transitional program. It would also create mandatory sentences of 14 to 30 days for those convicted of resisting arrest, assaulting law enforcement officers, and felony fleeing. The bill is currently awaiting a vote at the state Senate Appropriations Committee before moving to the Senate floor. Republican North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley, the bill's primary advocate, says it would stop dangerous, repeat offenders from being released back into the public after serving only a fraction of their sentence. "What we've identified is there is a complete lack of truth in sentencing in North Dakota," Wrigley told Minot Daily News earlier this month. "There's no transparency. There's no accountability, and to top it off, you won't be surprised, there are no results. There are no results that would ever support a system that is systematically letting violent criminals out the side door in many cases well before they're paroled, and in every case, well before they've served their sentence." However, the legislation has alarmed not only criminal justice advocates and civil liberties groups, but the North Dakota prison system, which estimates it will drastically increase costs while eliminating rehabilitative programs. The North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (DOCR) released a fiscal note estimating that the bill will increase incarceration costs by $269 million through 2029, according to the Grand Forks Herald. DOCR Director Colby Braun told the Grand Forks Herald that access to rehabilitative programming, work release, and in-house work at prisons would be considerably reduced for both violent and non-violent inmates, possibly leading to the elimination of some transitional housing facilities entirely: "The bill completely changes all the work that has happened over the decades," Braun said. "This bill takes all those opportunities away from most people." Wrigley contends that the DOCR is intentionally overstating the costs and effects to sink his bill. Criminal justice advocates say reducing opportunities for sentence reductions also destroys incentives for inmates to participate in rehabilitative and educational programs. "The bill reduces incentives for rehabilitation in prison," says Kevin Ring, the vice president of criminal justice advocacy at Arnold Ventures, a philanthropic advocacy group. "The best research—and common sense—suggests we should do the opposite. Prisons function better and offenders succeed more often when they are given incentives to improve themselves while they are incarcerated." Many states began passing truth-in-sentencing laws in the 1990s, spurred by federal grants for prison construction if they did so, as well as outrage over offenders being released early from long sentences. However, those laws, combined with long mandatory minimum sentences, tend to ultimately saddle states with large, aging, and very expensive prison populations. During the bipartisan criminal justice reforms of the 2010s, some states reduced their truth-in-sentencing requirements, created additional reductions for good behavior or completing programs, and added "second-look" or "safety valve" provisions that allow judges to reduce sentences in some circumstances. However, in recent years some states have gone the other way. Arkansas, Colorado, and Louisiana have all enacted new truth-in-sentencing provisions. The new mandatory minimum sentences in the North Dakota bill also drew criticism. Resisting arrest, for example, is a notoriously abused charge that police use to retaliate against people who annoy them. "Mandatory minimums never allow for context, and this bill suffers from the same flaw," Ring says. "A nervous 18-year-old who flees the campus keg party when the cops arrive is subject to the same mandatory jail sentence as the dangerous, armed subject that I assume the drafters had in mind. This is dumb on the best of days, but it is dangerous when county jails are already dangerously understaffed." The post North Dakota's 'Truth-in-Sentencing' Bill Could Cost More Than $250 Million appeared first on
