Legislature’s concentration on criminal justice is overdue

Sunday, Feb. 5, 2017 | 2 a.m.

Considering there are no Tesla-level economic development projects on the near horizon and Gov. Brian Sandoval isn’t pressing for a big-ticket item like his school-funding plan from 2015, some people believe the 2017 session of the Nevada Legislature will be ho-hum.

Maybe, maybe not. But with the session scheduled to get underway Monday, at least one likely outcome would be worth cheering.

Lawmakers are poised to make meaningful changes in the criminal justice and penal systems — areas that, while not as exciting as a Tesla plant or a $1 billion-plus school-funding plan, have long been in need of reform.

Senate Majority Leader Aaron Ford, D-Las Vegas, said Senate Democrats’ top priorities include an examination of Nevada’s drug laws and sentencing practices to address inequities in the percentage of ethnic minorities in the state’s prisons. In addition, Ford said Democrats would press for reforms that would help prison inmates reintegrate into society, such as restoring their rights to vote and serve on juries.

In addition, Democrats are supporting a recommendation from a criminal justice advisory panel to establish a special commission that would set statewide sentencing guidelines for crimes.

These are all important steps.

Nevada’s per-capita imprisonment rate is above the national average, and a 2015 report from the Nevada Department of Corrections indicated that blacks in the state’s prison population were three times their proportion in the general population.

On the issue of sentencing guidelines, Supreme Court Justice James Hardesty told the advisory panel that some judges sentenced 30 percent of defendants to prison while other judges handed down sentences to 60 percent of defendants for the same crime.

It’s time to follow other states in establishing sentencing guidelines, which set a range of prison terms for various crimes but allow judges to make exceptions in cases involving extenuating circumstances.

With Democratic majorities in both the Senate and the Assembly, as well as a moderate Republican governor in Sandoval, state lawmakers are in an ideal position to push through reforms and right some terrible wrongs. Among those were criminal laws and sentencing practices that unfairly targeted blacks, largely an offshoot of the war on drugs.

As a result of these and other issues, blacks make up 29 percent of Nevada’s prison population as opposed to just 9 percent of the general population, the 2015 report said.

That disproportionality is appalling, so here’s to Ford and others who have committed to reforming the system.

Another encouraging factor heading into the 2017 session is that lawmakers now have a willing partner in efforts to modernize the prison system: Corrections Director James Dzurenda, who took over the department in 2016.

Dzurenda has already made strides by discontinuing use of shotguns by corrections officers, implementing HIV training for prison staff and directing counseling resources toward inmates considered to have a moderate or high likelihood of re-offending. He has more plans up his sleeve too.

So as the session gets underway, here’s hoping lawmakers follow through on their commitment to overhaul the system.

Sessions often get titles based on key issues. For instance, 2015 was known as the education session because of Sandoval’s plans.

That being the case, there would be a lot worse ways for 2017 to be remembered than the criminal justice session.