Difference between revisions of "Guns, Prisons, Crime, and Immigration"

For a full list of bills from this section, click here

The Center for Media and Democracy analyzed the bills ALEC politicians and corporations voted for. More analysis is available below and also at ALEC Exposed's sister sites, PRWatch and SourceWatch.

Corporations and their politician allies voted behind closed doors through ALEC to change America's criminal justice system by:

• Enacting new barriers to community-based corrections, which will increase prison populations and the profits of the private prison industry (see also this bill).

• Anti-immigrant legislation that requires local law enforcement to enforce complex federal law, encourages racial profiling, and destroys the law enforcement-community relationship (see this bill, this bill, this bill, and this bill).

• Overturning common-law rules designed to deter police misconduct and ensure arrests and searches are constitutional, including:
  • Reversal of the "Exclusionary Rule" for unlawfully obtained evidence and,
  • Elimination of the "hearsay rule" when determining whether probable cause existed.

• Adding new penalties to retail theft, which will benefit ALEC Private Sector Board Member Wal-Mart, such as:
  • Adding a penalty-enhancer for thieves who use the emergency exit, and
  • Making it a felony to steal from three retail establishments, regardless of the value of the property stolen.

• Imposing new regulations on swap meets and flea markets that may compete with retail stores.

• Perpetuating the war on drugs through:
  • Mandatory minimum sentencing for drug crimes,
  • Requiring university students convicted of any drug crime be suspended and lose financial aid,
  • Promoting drug testing in workplaces, and
  • Suspending driver’s licenses for all persons convicted of drug crimes.

• Including victims in the parole decision, or the sentencing decision, even though victim anger has little to do with a person’s likelihood of recidivism or rehabilitation, but will lengthen prison sentences (see also the related Constitutional Amendment).

• Imposing unrealistic conditions for parolees or persons on probation, setting them up for failure and re-incarceration.

• Blaming homeowners for the mortgage crisis by creating the crime of "mortgage fraud."

• Opposing the collection of personal information in pawnbroking.

• Supporting the National Rifle Association's agenda through legislation and resolutions that:
  • Puts guns on college campuses,
  • Supports concealed-carry gun laws, for example through recognition of concealed carry laws from other states, with reciprocity, and without reciprocity.
  • Prohibits local counties or cities from enacting firearm restrictions.
  • Opposes efforts by law enforcement to use their purchasing power to pursue public safety ends by asking gun manufacturers not to market weapons for criminal use.
  • Opposes the ability for law enforcement officers to seize guns and ammunition in declared "states of emergency."
  • Opposes waiting periods for firearm purchases.
  • Opposes bans on semi-automatic firearms like the one used in the shooting in Arizona that killed nine people and seriously injured Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.
  • Puts guns in kids' hands.

• Promoting legislation to treat juveniles as adults and creating new legislation with new penalties for juvenile offenders.

• Subjecting juveniles to the same lineup requirements as adults.

• Propping up the commercial bail bond industry that has a record of corrupting the sentencing process, and putting the decision of whether an accused person goes free in the hands of a profit-oriented business, through legislation that:
  • Attacks efforts to enact evidence-based alternative pre-trial release programs by
    • Eliminating pre-trial release agencies, or
    • Imposing burdensome reporting requirements.
  • Offers bail bond companies opportunities to avoid paying debts to states by:
    • Allowing debts to expire or
    • Imposing notification technicalities on courts.
  • Expanding the list of offenses for which a person must pay a for-profit bail-bondsman for their release (see also this bill and this bill).

Some of this Corporate Agenda Has Already Become Law:

Passed in Wisconsin in 1997, "Truth in Sentencing" requires inmates to serve their full sentence without options for parole or supervised release. The program has inflated prison populations and greatly increased the amount of taxpayer dollars spent on prisons -- in Wisconsin, to an estimated $1.8 billion through 2025. In many states, Truth in Sentencing has increased profits for private prison companies like the Corrections Corporation of America, a member of ALEC's Private Sector board. In 1999, then-Rep. Scott Walker introduced two bills that would allow private prisons in Wisconsin. While those bills did not pass, some inmates were contracted out to private prisons in other states, and the Corrections Corporation of America has registered lobbyists in the state ever since.

A former head of Wisconsin's prison system who is currently a University of Wisconsin Law Professor, Walter Dickey, told American Radio Works it is "shocking" that lawmakers would write sentencing policy with help from ALEC, a group that gets funding, and supposedly "expertise," from a private prison corporation.

"I don't know that they know anything about sentencing," he said. "They know how to build prisons, presumably, since that's the business they're in. They don't know anything about probation and parole. They don't know about the development of alternatives. They don't know about how public safety might be created and defended in communities in this state and other states."

The Wisconsin state legislature apparently recognized the folly of Truth in Sentencing and rolled back the law between 2001 and 2009. When Scott Walker became governor, he reversed this progress and requested legislation to restore the ALEC corporation-supported Truth in Sentencing, despite the costs to taxpayers and despite claiming Wisconsin was "broke." It is unknown whether privatized prisons will soon follow.

To learn more about this story, click here, or here.

Have any of these bills been introduced or enacted in YOUR state? If so, please add that information to the ALEC Exposed page on your state by searching for your state's name in the search engine at the top of this page.

In 2011, Wisconsin ALEC members introduced AB-69, a bill nearly identical to the ALEC "Castle Doctrine Act" approved by the National Rifle Association. The bill allows a homeowner to shoot and kill a person they claim is breaking into their home, without fear of civil liability. A marked-up version of AB-69, noting the relevant sections of the ALEC Castle Doctrine Act, can be found here.

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