Justice Reform Consortium
Legislative Agenda
Revised January 2008
1. No reinstatement of the death penalty, not even on a limited basis.
2. THE MENTALLY ILL and ADDICTED: Mandate treatment rather than prison for those offenders who commit crimes attributable to their being addicted to drugs or alcohol or to their being severely mentally ill. Legislate and appropriate drug courts and mental health courts or alternative procedures for diverting offenders from prison. Appropriate adequate community substance abuse and mental health treatment funding for people to be treated rather than sent to prison. Provide adequate treatment and staffing for those for those who must be treated in the institutions and CBC’s.
3. Revise all sex offender related laws and appropriations, including residency restrictions and availability of treatment, so the restrictions are reasonable and the treatment adequate.
4. Authorize no new prisons or additions which will add new capacity for housing additional prisoners. Improvement of facilities does not mean we need to add capacity which greatly increases our funding needs to operate them. Any growth is inevitably and almost automatically met and moved to at least 30% of overcrowding. Fort Madison maximum security and ICIW at Mitchellville can be improved without increasing their capacity, except ICIW must be set up to incorporate the women now held at Mt. Pleasant and Oakdale so that all female offender services and processing are in one location. Instituting other changes recommended herein and in the report of the Durrant Group, Inc. will preclude the need for additional capacity.
5. Appropriate funding to ensure availability to all prisoners in the institutions and Community Based Corrections the education, job training, restorative justice, psychological and life counseling programming that is needed to help them deal with changing their lives and moving back to the community. Lifers should be included even though their lives will be lived out in the institution. For those who believe Iowa is providing all this now they are wrong, a fact confirmed by the report of the Durrant Group.
6. Appropriate the funding for adequate numbers of well trained correctional and parole officers, case workers, counselors, etc to effectively operate the facilities we now have and the programs we need to properly carry out the mission of the Department of Corrections.
7. Establish a self-binding moratorium that there will be no bills introduced that enhance criminal sentences/penalties or create new crimes that add to the prison population during the 82nd General Assembly.
8. Establish a non-partisan sentencing commission and enact the corrective legislation to bring Iowa code into compliance with how it must be able to operate.
9. Expand the re-entry programming. Effective re-entry programming is the key to ensuring the public safety by returning offenders to society ready to be there and stay there.
10. Appropriate increased resources to the Board of Parole to allow for moving more offenders toward re-entry.
11. Address the issue of overrepresentation of African-Americans in Prison and recognize how little has been done to rectify this situation.
12. Require the Department of Corrections to change the prisoners’ telephone system so that it is “revenue-neutral” and does not result in a “profit” being made by the Department for any programming. Appropriate from the General Fund the amounts for those programs now funded by over-charging for inmate phone calls.
13. Change the Iowa Code to allow anyone sentenced to life imprisonment to apply to the governor every five years (currently ten years) asking that their sentence be commuted to a term of years.
14. Eliminate Life Without Parole for those convicted as children in Iowa (persons under 18). Seek commutation of the sentences for the 44 Iowa prisoners now serving Life Without Parole in Iowa prisons.
For additional information or clarification please contact the Legislative Advocate for the Justice Reform Consortium: Carlos Jayne at revcjayne@mchsi.com 515-285-5383 or cell 515-991-5381
Justice Reform Consortium member organizations: Friends of Iowa Women Prisoners; Iowa CURE(Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants); Social Concerns Department, Catholic Charities, Sioux City Diocese; American Friends Service Committee, Iowa Division; Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Des Moines Chapter; National Organization for Women, Iowa Chapter; National Organization for Women, Des Moines Chapter; Beacon of Life; Conference Board of Church and Society, Iowa United Methodist Church; National Association of Social Workers, Iowa Chapter; Presbytery of Des Moines, Social Justice Committee; Trinity United Methodist Church, Des Moines; ACLU of Iowa; Methodist Federation for Social Action; MICAH Corp.
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