The Wyoming legislature's Joint Judiciary Committee has drafted a bill that aims to enact criminal justice reform.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman David Miller said the bill would reduce Wyoming’s prison population through a variety of sentencing reforms.
“[Through] not as strict sentencing, letting the prosecutors have a little more leeway, the judges have a little more leeway, and when people are up for parole, giving them possibly more credit for time served, good time served, or if there is a minor infraction not resetting all that back to zero,” said Miller.
Prisons in Torrington and Lusk are at or near capacity, and a task force is considering making major repairs to the prison in Rawlins. Laramie Representative Charles Pelkey said that this bill would save the state money in the long-run.
“It costs a lot of money to lock people up, and some of those people frankly don’t need to be locked up,” Pelkey said.
“They need treatment. They need job training. They need probation and strict supervision, perhaps, but we can do that a lot more cheaply than locking people up in prison, and I think that’s the long-term goal of this and perhaps future bills.”
The bill is still under financial review, but is expected to cost $2.8 million. The measure does not address decriminalizing drugs like marijuana. The full legislature will consider the measure in the upcoming session starting in January.
