N.C. Revamps Sentencing To Balance Cell Capacity

RALEIGH, N.C. In the face of increased crime and out-of-controlprison costs, judges in North Carolina's criminal courts this fallwill begin using a simple, one-page chart of letters and numbers todispense justice that - quite literally - makes the punishment fitthe budget.

Officially called the "felony punishment chart," but known byprosecutors and criminals as "the grid," the chart is the centerpieceof an innovative sentencing law that has put North Carolina at theforefront of an increasingly popular concept of criminal justice:balancing prison sentences with available cell capacity.

For several years, states have been turning to sentencingguidelines in an attempt to gain control over rapidly escalatingprison populations. Minnesota pioneered this approach, andpresumptive sentencing rules have been enacted in at least 16 otherstates.

But states also have been forced by budget constraints to take asecond look at the hard-line anti-crime measures and mandatorysentences they enacted in the 1980s - with little regard for futureprison costs - and are examining more economical alternatives.

North Carolina's new system, known as "structured sentencing" or"capacity-based sentencing," recognizes the impossibility of buildingprisons fast enough to keep up with the influx of offenders. It alsoacknowledges the state's inability to imprison most offenders foranywhere near the duration of the sentences the courts have beenhanding down.

While abolishing parole for all new offenders and lengtheningsentences for violent criminals and repeat offenders, the new lawwill reduce prison sentences an average of 80 percent to conform moreclosely to the length of time that inmates actually are behind barsat present.

"What we're doing is setting priorities. We're saying we willuse our prisons for violent offenders and career offenders. Theconverse of that, of course, is that we will have to punish theothers in other ways," said Superior Court Judge Thomas W. Ross,chairman of the state's Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission,which proposed the reforms enacted last year by the legislature.

The "other ways" are community-based alternatives such asclosely supervised probation, day reporting centers, halfway houses,boot camps, drug-treatment facilities, electronically monitored housearrest, fines and restitution.

But the heart of the new law is the grid, a compilation ofranges of minimum and maximum sentences for 10 categories of feloniesthat are matched to a defendant's criminal record through a pointsystem.

On the left side of the chart is a list of crime categories,ranging from level A (first-degree murder) to level I (fraud, forgeryand lesser drug offenses). The numbers across the top correspond tothe number of points a defendant has accumulated through priorconvictions.

When ready to impose sentences, a judge matches the severitylevel of the crime to the defendant's prior record to find a squarecontaining the corresponding sentence range. An offender must serveat least the minimum sentence listed.

For example, level D, which includes first-degree burglary andarmed robbery, has a first-offender range of 44 to 55 months withoutaggravating or mitigating circumstances. The total range for level Dis from 33 months for a first offender with mitigating circumstancesto 158 months for a multiple offender with aggravating circumstances.

First and second offenders of some nonviolent felonies can, atthe judge's discretion, be given suspended sentences provided theycomplete an alternative punishment, such as intensive probation,house arrest or boot camp.

People convicted of first-degree murder will continue to receivea death sentence or life without parole, and repeat offendersconvicted of first-degree rape can get life without parole. Drugtraffickers will continue to receive pre-existing, mandatory minimumsentences.