By CHRIS POWELL
Connecticut coddles many criminals. Someone may be convicted of a half-dozen or more offenses in separate incidents over a period of years and still not be locked up at all, much less be deemed incorrigible and locked up for good.
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Despite all the prattling done by the state’s liberal politicians about guns, at last count most gun crime charges were being plea-bargained away in favor of guilty pleas to charges like robbery and assault, crimes that are mistakenly considered more serious. If gun crimes were prosecuted more vigorously, there probably would be much less gun crime.
But last week a report from the Connecticut Mirror demonstrated how state law is inflicting unnecessary cruelty on former offenders and even punishing them for rehabilitating themselves.
The report highlighted the case of a North Branford couple who had done serious prison time, the woman for drug offenses, the man for assault and larceny. Upon their release they met in a program for former offenders and married married. They supported each other, stayed out of trouble, got jobs, bought and renovated a house, and showed that troublesome people sometimes can rehabilitate themselves.
But when the man died and the house passed to his wife, state government determined that his estate owed the state $233,000 as repayment for the cost of his incarceration.
Shocking as this was to the widow, Connecticut has enforced such a law for many years. The widow could discharge her late husband’s debt only by selling the house and taking an apartment whose rent was higher than her former mortgage payment.
The law is fair to a certain extent — the extent involving financial windfalls. After imposing serious costs on society, former offenders shouldn’t get rich through no substantial efforts of their own. They should be required to cover the cost of their imprisonment if they come into big money via things like lottery winnings, lawsuit settlements, damage awards, major inheritances, and such.
In a case that may raise similar issues, a man who had done prison time in Connecticut and was the father of a young girl who was murdered, apparently by family members, is suing the state Department of Children and Families on behalf of his daughter’s estate, even though he had abandoned the girl and her mother long before the murder. If the estate wins a lot of money, he might have to repay the state for his prison costs but still get rich in the name of the daughter he abandoned.
But the house owned by the North Branford woman and her late husband was not the product of a windfall. It was something they earned honestly through years together. While the house can be construed as an inheritance for the surviving spouse, it came to her only at the cost of her husband’s life.
Each year state government recovers about $3.3 million in incarceration costs from hundreds of former prisoners. It’s a substantial amount that shouldn’t be foregone lightly.
But few former prisoners have substantial assets and so most aren’t billed. Most former prisoners struggle to re-establish themselves in life, and the more they are ground down by circumstances, the less incentive they have to live honestly and not return to crime. Indeed, prison is usually a profound punishment long after a prisoner’s release, and most former prisoners do return to crime within a few years.
Upon their release most prisoners are unaware of their liability to repay the state for their incarceration if they ever succeed financially, and if, in fairness, the Correction Department started warning them about it upon their release, they might sense a millstone around their neck and lose enthusiasm for staying out of trouble. The state would be telling them: We’ll never let you succeed financially through your own efforts.
So the General Assembly should reconsider the incarceration costs repayment law. The law should continue to apply to true windfalls, but what former prisoners earn by their own efforts and commitment to rehabilitation should be exempted.
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Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years. (CPowell@cox.net)
