Now he is out of jail on his own recognizance on a felony domestic violence indictment. He has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor violation of a protection order in the same incident. Through his attorney, he declined to comment for this story.
Siler is an example of a chronic offender, spending half his adult life incarcerated. But the state’s fiscal situation could mean less time for some offenders, who could be given alternatives to incarceration.
Senate Bill 10 and its companion House Bill 68 propose cutting $62 million from the state budget through an overhaul of sentencing and probation options as the legislature and governor wrestle to fill an $8 billion budget hole. There simply isn’t enough space or money for a tough-on-crime approach for every offender, reform proponents from across the political spectrum say.
“It not just too expensive, it doesn’t work,” said Ohio Public Defender Tim Young. “Tough on crime creates more crime.”
According to the bill’s sponsor, state Sen. Bill Sietz, R-Cincinnati, it will require that first-time, nonviolent low-level felons be sentenced to three years probation instead of prison or jail time.
The recommendation came from a yearlong task force that studied the state’s criminal justice system. Multiple fourth- and fifth-degree felony offenders might not get the same break.
If the reforms pass and work as proponents say they will, the result will be more options for dealing with troubled people with drug addictions and mental health problems, while saving money and creating prison space for more violent offenders.
But local activists are skeptical.
“You are not going to rehabilitate these guys,” said Barry Hall, Greater Old North Dayton Business Association president. His group started keeping track of its chronic offenders, including Siler, and lobbying judges for stiffer sentences about five years ago.
The state’s view
At the end of 2009, there were nearly 340,000 adults under criminal justice control in Ohio, according to a report done by the Council of State Governments. Nearly 255,000, or 75 percent, were on probation.
The prisons are at 133 percent capacity, and each year, the state takes in 25,000 inmates. About half of them stay for less than a year.
Those generally would be the lower-level felons. A fifth-degree felony brings a maximum 12-month sentence, and a fourth-degree felony brings a maximum 18-month sentence.
Many of the changes in Senate Bill 10 come directly from the council’s report.
The proposal would give inmates the possibility of receiving an “earned credit” reduction of up to 8 percent of their sentence by successfully completing drug treatment, job training and education programs. It would increase the threshold for felony theft charges from $500 to $1,000, provide more nonprison sentencing options for nonviolent offenders and revamp the probation system statewide.
Proponents say the changes would save the state $62 million during the next four years and keep the state from spending $500 million more on new prisons.
Public defender Young testified on behalf of a similar bill last session and worked on the council study. He said that people need to realize that 95 percent of all prisoners are eventually released.
Young, who previously worked for the Montgomery County Public Defender, said 80 percent of his clients had drug or mental health issues.
But piling those people in prison for short periods of time, then turning them loose, does little to help them or improve public safety, Young said.
“What do you get at the end of the day?” Young said. “A drug addict with better connections.”
In 2008, more than 10,000 fourth- and fifth-degree felony property and drug offenders were sentenced to state prison. They served an average of nine months at a cost of $189 million, according to the council report.
Few received treatment for addictions or other problems. Then 72 percent returned to the community with no post-release community supervision, the report said.
The result, Young said, is a “revolving door” that ultimately creates a “badder guy.”
The Ohio Prosecuting Attorney’s Association, however, has a problem with certain parts of the bill, especially allowing convicts to earn time reductions. John Murphy, association executive director, said prosecutors fought for years to get the “truth in sentencing” overhaul in the mid-1990s, designed to make convicted felons serve their full sentences. “We basically think prisoners ought to serve their time,” Murphy said.
The association is not against parts of the bill that lift the felony level for thefts, which was set years ago, or equalize the penalties for crack and powder cocaine possession, Murphy said.
But public safety should be first priority, and cuts should be made elsewhere, he said.
“You’re going to have to bite the bullet,” Murphy said. “We just have to properly fund the prison system.”
The local view
University of Dayton law professor Tom Hagel said many of the budget-driven proposals are simply shifting the burden down from the state to the county and local level, where resources and jail space may be even tighter.
“In the middle of every summer, the message comes to the court system that the county jail is at maximum capacity or over,” Hagel said.
The Montgomery County Regional Jail has room for 960 inmates. This week the jail had around 840 beds taken, a number that rises dramatically during the summer. Judges, prosecutors and probation officers work together to control the jail population during those peak times.
The cost of keeping a prisoner one night in the jail is around $61. A 90-day sentence runs the taxpayers more than $5,500.
In the environment of limited resources, community groups such as the Greater Old North Dayton Business Association believe getting chronic offenders off the streets is worth the cost.
The association started its court watch to make the neighborhood a better place to do business.
“The glaring thing was the perception was — and rightfully so — this is a dangerous place,” said Hall, the association president. After talking with police and prosecutors, Hall became convinced it was a handful of people who were committing the majority of the crime.
The group now tracks the Unlucky 13, the chronic offenders in the neighborhood.
Since the association began writing to judges asking for the maximum sentence, crime is down 58 percent in the area, Hall said, adding that he does not know if the association’s actions had any effect on the crime decline.
“I’m a big believer in taking into account factors relevant to sentencing,” said Hagel, a substitute municipal judge for more than 20 years. “If it is the defendant’s first offense for prostitution, the punishment might be less severe than someone convicted for the 12th time for criminal trespassing.”
Last month, Hall sent an email to the common pleas judge hearing Siler’s domestic violence case. “If Brian should be found guilty, please take into consideration his past history of terrorizing our neighborhood. Siler has been one of a handful of repeat offenders who commit crimes over and over again. ... Our only hope is to keep him off our streets for as long as possible, so I would hope you can impose the maximum sentence available for his crimes.”
Judge John Pickrel, the Municipal Court presiding judge, said such statements should go through the prosecutor’s office. An underlying principle of the American justice system is the assumption of the defendant’s innocence until proven otherwise. Though Pickrel’s staff screens most of his correspondence, he will occasionally see something referring to a case before him. Then he must inform both the prosecution and defense of the communication and ask if he should recuse himself from the case.
Dollars and cents
All of the changes sought are based on new economic realities, experts say.
Being tough on crime “now has a pretty heavy price tag on it,” said Art Jipson, a sociologist and director of criminal justice studies at the University of Dayton.
“I don’t think we have a choice anymore,” he said. “How do you deal with that financial reality? The response is to say, is there a better way to do this?”
Hagel said he remains frustrated with low-level offenders who continue to violate misdemeanor laws, getting repeated short jail stints. The only way to deal with them would be to pass a “three-strikes” type law, that would enhance sentences for repeat offenders, he said. “These are individuals who have been before the court numerous times and punished but shown they don’t care.”
But other states have found those laws are extremely expensive, he added, and it’s unlikely Ohio could look at something like that now.
“You think you’ve got budget problems now?” Hagel said. “The system is absolutely strained, and something has got to give.”
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