What Senate Bill 367 would mean

We might soon have another sweeping criminal justice reform law in Georgia. Senate Bill 367 (SB 367) would adopt suggestions from the Georgia Council on Criminal Justice Reform and has cleared the Senate needing only approval from the State House.

SB 367 would expand the concepts and roles of Accountability Courts. Houston County only has such court for mental health issues; SB 367 would expand the use of such courts (beyond drug, mental health, and veterans courts) to State Courts (just misdemeanor offenses), as well as adding a “family treatment court” in juvenile court for offenses transferred because a conviction might implicate the accused’s child custody rights. DUI charges (“under the influence” court) would also be added to crimes which could be administered through an Accountability Court. No new monies would be needed to fund these court as state, federal, and private grants, local funding, and/or through expanded assessment fees, pay for them.

Accountability Courts have the same goal and structure; they offer an accused the access to an adjudicatory process concerned less with punishment and more with rehabilitation and to reduce recidivism. In some cases, an accused can complete the court without being convicted of a crime. Participants are supervised more stringently, while also being offered tools to overcome their underlying societal foible.

There is also an important bureaucratic aspect to SB 367. All adult probation and parole administration would be consolidated under the Department of Community Supervision (DCS), as well as responsibility for recommending changes in policies.

A major point of this administrative consolidation is to provide new training and control of private probation companies. This requires elaboration.

Maybe a decade or so ago, the Georgia Legislature removed from state probation officers’ responsibilities state, municipal, recorder’s, and probate courts. Instead, these services were privatized. Virtually no oversight or training had since been required or provided by state officials. The goal of private companies is, naturally, profit, which are maximized by assuring the payment of fines and fees. At present, they can use the power of the courts to incarcerate probationers for non-payment of these fines and fees, without regard to the probationers’ ability to pay. And, as you might expect, those at the lower end of the economic spectrum suffer the most.

If SB 367 is passed, much of this will change. For one, the state would exert some authority in required training of private probation officers.

Of even more significance, though, is that they would be barred from obtaining arrest warrants just because of non-payment. Also, probationers could petition a court to have their probation terminated, if the only reason for being on probation is to pay fines and fees.

I once represented a wife whose husband was jailed for just such a reason. He eventually died there when he received substandard health care, all because a private probation company wanted to make money off of him.

In addition to the family treatment courts, if SB 367 is passed there would be a new emphasis in assuring that detained juveniles (and young adults in the adult system) would have access to formal education.

This bill would authorize state authorities to bypass local school boards through a statewide Charter School structure. There is also a “tweak” tucked into this bill to provide for some state oversight of educational discipline, wresting some control from local school boards and designed to curb a punishment first approach to student offenders.

SB 367 would also make it easier to obtain a driver’s license after suspension by having suspensions run concurrently and retroactive back as far as possible. Permits would be easier to obtain by “pauper’s affidavits.”

The final major component of SB 367 would be to strengthen laws permitting the accused to avoid conviction by “First Offender” treatment and to have records sealed more completely. The goal, here, is to make it easier for folks coming into the criminal justice system, through no fault of their own (dismissal or acquittal) and/or with a first conviction, to avoid the cascading collateral affects of an arrest/conviction in privacy and employment.

SB 367 has many good ideas. It may not go far enough to facilitate the release of low-level offenders from prison; yet, it certainly suggests we are learning that a prison-first mentality is neither beneficial to individuals nor society as a whole.

Hence, you might want to lobby your local state house representative to support this bill when it comes up for a floor vote later this spring.

Local attorney Jim Rockefeller owns the Rockefeller Law Center and is a former Houston Co. Chief Assistant District Attorney, and a former Miami Prosecutor. Visit www.rockefellerlawcenter.com to submit confidential legal questions, and to review former articles and Frequently Asked Questions.

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