The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

The House overwhelmingly approved the bill, 128-12, with mostly urban and minority lawmakers in opposition.

A spokesman for Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell said the governor had not committed to a position on the bill, saying she would wait to review the law once it reaches her desk.

The crime bill adapts the recommendations of prosecutors, judges and others on the“front lines” of the criminal justice system into workable improvements in the existing law, said Rep. Michael P. Lawlor, D-East Haven, the co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee, in an interview before debate began.

”After nine months of deliberation, finally we have come up with a version of three-strikes that is tough and will actually work,” Lawlor said moments later, during debate on the House floor.

But what exactly constitutes a“three-strikes” law has been a central issue of dispute.

Republicans charged that neither the state's existing sentencing guidelines for“persistent felony offenders” - those convicted more than once of one of 21 of the most serious charges, including manslaughter, arson, home invasion and sexual assault - nor the Democratic improvements were sufficiently harsh on those receiving a third conviction.

A Republican amendment that would have issued an automatic penalty of life in prison without possibility of parole was rejected, but by a relatively narrow margin of 63-77, with 21 Democrats joining the minority.

A sentencing judge“should not be able to commit a third strike himself and jeopardize our future safety,” said Rep. Al Adinolfi, R-Cheshire.“The public should not have to be confronted with a fourth strike.”

But Lawlor was able to secure an acknowledgment from Republicans during debate that even their proposal would not have automatically banished such a third-time criminal to prison for life, since the law could have no effect on the ability of prosecutors to offer plea bargains, which could lessen sentences.

Meanwhile, Rep. Ernest Hewett, D-New London, and other urban lawmakers denounced the bill, which Hewett called“a feel-good bill” that would do nothing to help direct those most likely to wind up in Connecticut prisons - young, minority men - away from the path of crime in the first place.

”If this bill had money in it for education, intervention, after-school, I would support it tomorrow,” Hewett said.“But it has nothing.”

The funding to provide greater resources for probation and treatment of nonviolent offenders would be cold comfort, he added, since declining revenues are now throwing the state's ability to pay into question.

”There's no money,” Hewett said.

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