States Earned Time Policies

Hello all,

Time to report on a look across all the states regarding earned time credits. Two recent sources that I think you are aware of and copies were forwarded are Cutting Corrections Costs: Earned Time Policies for State Prisoners. The report was released in July 2009 by the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) and was funded by the Pew Foundation. The author was Alison Lawrence, a policy specialist with NCSL. The second report is a set of notes from Lawrence's research that I downloaded from "Grits for Breakfast", a site that deals with Texas issues. On page two of the August 20 Grits letter they had a Google link to Statues Related to Good Time/Earned Time dated June 2009. It is a 27 page document and had references to state legislative codes regarding criminal justice.

As Bill correctly recognized, and I summarized below in my note to Nicole, the real question is how far have states gone beyond what Virginia currently has on the books and implicitly what are earned time credits and how do they differ from good time allowances. After going through a search of the codes for the various states and also trying Google searches on good time, earned time and other stabs I ended up in a sloppy fashion of concluding that this arena is at best messy and may not have a lot to offer in terms of clear cut things we can push for in Virginia. Good time may relate to serving time with good behavior and participating in various prison work programs. But often for many states, including Virginia it includes credits for educational (GED and college) and other programs that are designed to improve personal behaviors and deal with substance abuse. In other states the term earned time or variation thereof includes educational programs, self improvement programs, meritorious service and deeds etc.

With few relatively few exceptions states have fairly generous reductions in time served in local jails for good behavior and participation in programs. Since the offenders are serving time for less serious misdemeanor or short felony crimes, frequently involving substance abuse, the credits are liberal. At the state level credits may be generous for "lower" or less serious classes of offenders as opposed to say level II and III prisoners. The most serious crimes, homicide in the lst degree, may not allow for any credits. In effect Bill's summary of the situation is correct. The exceptions seem to be few.

The 85 percent rule seems to be generally in use for the most serious violent crimes. There is no uniformity that is readily apparent across states in terminology, definitions of non-parole eligible or violent crimes, and in terms of earned time policies for education, vocation, rehabilitation, work, disaster/conservation, meritorious or other credits for participation or completion of programs. It would take a lot of research to come up with a list of items to include in a list of items for improving Virginia earned time credits.

I will list a few items of interest and include some attachments that may be of interest but my results are not overly rewarding or clear cut. Perhaps this is not a surprise but it may also suggest the whole country is somewhat equally punitive in their approaches to criminal justice for felons.
Arkansas has a 70 percent rule for less serious offenders.
Hawaii had a number of 2009 proposals to provide credits that did not make it into legislation
Iowa Category A felons not subject to 85 percent rule
Kansas 80 percent rule for drug offenders 3 and 4.
Maine recently increased good time credits for most all crimes
Maryland has improved some credits in the past year of two.
Nevada has statutory good time, worth a glance at a long and complex document
New Jersey or is it New Hampshire, geriatric parole codes are interesting
New Mexico is liberal in attitude, worth a look.
Washington State has liberalized in some areas but not for serious offenses.
Everyone else generally in line or even more conservative then Virginia.

This is all likely a bit frustrating but I go back to Bill's original observation that earned time credits may not have a lot of promise. If it is alternative sentencing, drug courts, and budget initiatives to cut costs than this could be a different story.

Comments and input welcome and I likely missed some things but I did want to get you a summary without further delay.

Bob