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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

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Editorial: Charging, sentencing can make big fiscal impact

The case of the shoplifter who has been charged with a felony raises a pertinent question about the best use of taxpayer money.

As reported in The Spokesman-Review on Sunday, a Cheney woman stole $163 worth of merchandise from a craft store. She was confronted outside and bumped into the manager. This contact led the Spokane County Prosecutor’s Office to charge her with second-degree robbery rather than simple theft. She was convicted on that charge, but Superior Court Judge Tari Eitzen said at sentencing that the punishment of three to nine months in prison was too severe and reduced it to 30 hours of community service. The prosecutor’s office appealed, and a judge has returned the case to Eitzen for sentencing.

Our sympathies in this case lie with the taxpayers, not the woman, who says this conviction could ruin her chances to be a teacher. She is personally responsible for her dilemma.

By the same token, the prosecutor’s office is responsible for using its discretion in how to charge cases. Against a backdrop of dwindling funding, layoffs, struggles to get felony cases charged in the first 72 hours and a broad community discussion about alternative sentencing to mitigate the rising costs of incarceration, it doesn’t seem wise to find ways to turn possible misdemeanors into felonies and then continue the fight when a judge disagrees.

Granted, the case began in 2008, when some of these discussions were not on the public’s front burner. But it illustrates the kind of lock-’em-up mentality that has helped strain budgets. As Judge Eitzen said in the article, “We incarcerate people for everything, even small crimes and the jails and prisons become one of the biggest costs of our society.”

This is a problem nationwide, and one of the answers has been alternative sentencing. As a result, the U.S. jail population declined from June 2008 to June 2009 for the first time since the federal government has been keeping track. In Spokane County, the average daily jail population dropped from 1,126 in 2008 to 755 for the first four months of 2010. The average length of stay in jail dropped from 17.8 days in 2008 to 11.5 days during that same span. This led to 67 jail workers being laid off last year.

Still, Spokane County officials have determined that the region needs a new jail to replace its outdated one, at a cost of nearly $230 million (which it does not have).

Meanwhile, the prosecutor’s office was hit with an 11 percent budget cut and had to downsize. Prosecutors now juggle larger caseloads. The management of the office was the centerpiece of a contentious election last summer and fall.

Like all areas of government, the criminal justice system is hurting for money and must figure out ways to cope. Alternative sentencing has proved to be an important tool in lowering costs without endangering the community. All facets of the criminal justice system need to be on board and stay there.

Turning possible misdemeanors into felonies is a pricey trip backward and conveys the false message that county government has money to burn.