The title of this post is the headline of this interesting newspaper article from the North Star State focusing on a part of modern sentencing systems that merit a lot more attention than it usually gets. Here is how the piece gets started:
Since getting clean, Jennifer Schroeder went on to manage the sober living house that nurtured her after a year in jail. She became the first in her family to graduate from college and, as an addiction counselor, now helps others struggling with the same demons she had to overcome.
Yet Schroeder’s own past will loom large into her 70s. The 36-year-old St. Paul resident is on probation until 2053 after being caught with 21 grams of meth during a traffic stop one summer in Wright County. “It’s hard to transform yourself into a new person when you are still labeled as your old self,” Schroeder said.
The same crime would net a fraction of that sentence in Minneapolis or Duluth, a chasm that underscores the disparate nature of punishment in a state with one of the nation’s highest rates of probation but with no clear guidelines for judges to rely on.
With the backing from top officials at the Department of Corrections, state lawmakers from both parties are now pushing new measures to cap probation sentences in Minnesota at five years. They are also calling on the state’s Sentencing Guidelines Commission to start issuing recommendations for probation like it has for prison sentencing for nearly 30 years. “We are failing the basic test that those convicted of the same crime should receive similar punishment,” said Rep. Jamie Long, D-Minneapolis, who is sponsoring both bills.
Support for changing the state’s probation laws mirrors the national conversation surrounding criminal justice reform, like the recent First Step Act that focused on federal prison sentencing and earned broad bipartisan support. Those testifying at the State Capitol this week included local representatives from both the liberal American Civil Liberties Union and the conservative Americans for Prosperity.