Delaware AG Denn wants sentencing reforms
Delaware Attorney General Matt Denn is calling for a series of reforms to be more “just and fair” toward some nonviolent and repeat offenders, and close loopholes in the state’s gun crime laws.
The proposals will include ideas on investing in law enforcement and drug treatment, changing how juveniles are treated and ensuring the accuracy and fairness of the system.
“This is admittedly an ambitious agenda for the coming year and it is not set in stone,” Denn said. He unveiled the proposals Thursday at the Rotary Club of Wilmington’s weekly meeting at the Hotel du Pont in Wilmington.
“Over the next few months, we will invite the public to weigh in on our ideas before we bring them to the Legislature in January. But we have an opportunity to have a more just, more accurate criminal justice system at the same time that we take some important steps toward funding our law enforcement, treatment, and prevention efforts in the way that they deserve.
“That is an opportunity that we should seize, and the ideas I’ve laid out for you today are tangible steps toward doing so.”
More than 100 people heard Denn offer his proposals. Several, including retired Superior Court Judge Peggy Ableman, said they liked what they heard from the first-term attorney general.
“I think they’re phenomenal,” Ableman said of the proposals. “What Matt is intending to tackle are very, very difficult issues, but he’s come up with some solutions I think are amazingly appropriate considering some of the circumstances in which Delaware finds itself right now.”
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Caroline Jones, president and founder of Kind to Kids Foundation, said it was helpful to hear how some of these proposals can impact youths and community, especially the community reinvestment initiative.
Some of the proposals, if they become law, will likely reduce the number of Delawareans incarcerated. That’s why Denn is proposing legislation requiring the savings from any reduction in inmate population be directed into front-line law enforcement efforts, crime prevention programs and drug treatment programs.
“We work with the vulnerable youth within our community and they need support, training and education,” said Jones, whose program helps children who are victims of child abuse, neglect and poverty. “A lot of the children don’t have the guidance of children from a stable home and without this guidance and education they get in trouble.”
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Amber A. Baylor, visiting assistant professor at Widener University Delaware Law School, said Denn’s proposals are similar to reforms in place nationally that are not just there to save money, but to keep people out of the system.
“It’s following a lot of the changes that are happening across the country, as far as trying to reduce incarceration and recognizing the negative impact it’s had on communities, particularly communities with small resources, communities of color,” said Baylor, who was not at Thursday’s gathering. “That negative impact reverberates on all of us.”
The proposals include:
• Scaling back Delaware’s three-strikes sentencing law that requires life sentences for three-time violent felons no matter what their third felony was. Because of that law, there are people serving life sentences for such things as burglaries and drug offenses. Denn proposes legislation to eliminate automatic life sentences for three violent felonies and instead proposes the mandatory sentence for a third violent felony be the maximum sentence for that particular felony.
• Denn said he will continue to advocate for the passage of legislation to guarantee prison time for young adults with violent records as juveniles who are later found to be illegally in possession of a firearm, closing a loophole in Delaware’s gun laws.
• Another proposal would be to create a new position in Denn’s Office of Civil Rights dedicated to review claims of innocence – in other words, people who claim they were either convicted of or pleaded guilty to crimes they did not commit.
Contact Esteban Parra at (302) 324-2299, eparra@delawareonline.com or Twitter @eparra3.