An inmate at the Corrigan-Radgowski Correctional Center in Uncasville, Conn., works in the prison’s garden in 2010. (AP file)
Re: “Too many prison inmates? Itap not so simple,” Nov. 16 Perspective article.
When Judge Morris B. Hoffman labels racial bias in the criminal justice system as “nonsense,” he does so despite a body of research and data clearly showing the opposite.
According to the non-partisan Sentencing Project, black defendants in the U.S. are 20 percent more likely to be sentenced to prison for the same crimes as white defendants. A recent ACLU report found that nationally, blacks are almost four times more likely to be arrested and charged for low-level drug possession than whites, despite nearly identical usage rates.
These disparities do not correspond to rates of crime. Only racial bias, whether conscious or unconscious, can explain the difference.
Some of Judge Hoffman’s recommendations around reform of mandatory minimum sentencing, probation and drug laws are very good, but our country will never adequately address its obscene rates of incarceration without facing the reality of racial bias.
Nathan Woodliff-Stanley, Denver
The writer is executive director of the ACLU of Colorado.
I was disappointed and dismayed to see Denver Judge Morris B. Hoffman’s column in which he asserted that “we sentence most felons to probation, and most of them then serially violate their probation until, finally, we send them to prison.”
As a lawyer practicing criminal law in Colorado for more than 35 years, I questioned the accuracy of this assertion, because in my experience, most of the people placed on probation do not fail, as claimed by Judge Hoffman. My anecdotal observation was verified by checking with Colorado probation officials, who indicate that for fiscal year 2014, 65 percent of adults sentenced to probation successfully completed it.
Judge Hoffman’s invective is doubly troubling due to his position of authority, as well as his apparent bias toward those he sentences. While our criminal justice system is far from perfect, I should hope those who preside over it would be more conscientious before making reckless, negative comments reflecting upon the people directly impacted by their decisions.
John S. Portman, Denver
This letter was published in the Nov. 23 edition.
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