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The Way Ahead on Criminal Justice Reform in Ohio
The Way Ahead on
Criminal Justice Reform in Ohio
by DAVID LELAND
The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, and racial disparities pervade the justice system. Individuals of color are vastly overrepresented in both number of arrests and time behind bars.
Ohio’s criminal justice system hasn’t fared any better. If Ohio were a country, it would incarcerate at a higher rate than any other in the world, and Black Ohioans— approximately 14 percent of Ohio’s population— comprise nearly 50 percent of Ohio’s total prison population. Ohio law also has hundreds of “collateral sanctions”—legal handicaps imposed on former inmates—that make it exceedingly difficult for former inmates to get jobs, housing, education and other essential needs. This structure often leads to a cycle of poverty and hardship, causing those who’ve been incarcerated to be far more likely to be re-incarcerated and, ultimately, to have their lives shaped by their interactions with the state.
Spurred by that stark reality, Ohio’s leadership has finally made criminal justice reform a top priority. As the Ranking Member of the Ohio House Criminal
Justice Committee, I am proud of the progress we made last session to address some of our criminal justice system’s most concerning aspects. Last session alone, we enacted four pieces of major criminal justice reform legislation, each of which passed with overwhelming bipartisan support and made impressive strides toward reducing the inequalities present in Ohio’s criminal justice system.
House Bill 1, for example, provides treatment instead of incarceration for those suffering from an underlying drug addiction. Rather than punish them for their addiction, HB 1 ensures that people with drug addictions can get the help they need to make positive and lasting change in their lives. House Bill 1 also expands the sealing of criminal records, reducing the barriers that former inmates face when reentering society and increasing their chances of future success. To further remove barriers to reentry, we also passed Senate Bill 68, which allows people to reinstate their driver’s licenses by performing community service if they cannot afford the fee.
We also passed House Bill 136, which prohibits the death penalty for those affected by severe mental illnesses at the time they committed the crime. In a similar vein, Senate Bill 256 conforms Ohio law with U.S. Supreme Court precedent, which prohibits sentencing juveniles to life in prison without parole. Senate Bill 256 also increases the opportunity for parole for those who have demonstrated an adequate level of rehabilitation. These changes and others are certainly welcome reforms, but we have more to do. Many of the reforms we hope to see passed in this upcoming session were introduced during the last General Assembly with broad bipartisan support and are critical for reducing and reversing the worst trends in our criminal justice system.
We need to expand on the progress we made with last session’s HB 1 and steer low-level drug offenders toward treatment rather than prison. With drug possession being the number one reason that people enter Ohio’s already-overcrowded prison system, we need to truly prioritize treatment over incarceration.
We also need to address the quiet scourge of domestic violence. Ohio law makes it difficult to identify domestic violence when it happens and difficult to deal with in its early stages. House Bill 3, which passed the House with near-unanimity, created a continuum of protections for
victims of domestic violence and adopted several tools and resources to better identify domestic violence and provide support to victims. This reform is critical for protecting some of the most vulnerable Ohioans.
It’s also important to ensure that we have a sufficient number of public defenders to protect the rights of Ohio’s indigent defendants. In Ohio, 70 percent of defendants facing prison time are considered indigent, meaning they’re most likely to be represented by overworked public defenders. That’s why I’m reintroducing legislation that would reimburse law school graduates’ student loans in exchange for their service as public defenders in Ohio’s most underserved communities. Every American has a constitutional right to a lawyer – we need to strengthen that guarantee here in Ohio.
I also anticipate a vigorous debate on Ohio’s bail system. The concern expressed by many is that the current system is primarily a wealth-based system of detention. In other words, if you are wealthy enough to make bail, you are released, while if you don’t have the money, you are incarcerated. Unsurprisingly, the outcomes often fall along racial lines, with people of color more likely to serve time in pre-trial detention. This has other effects – if you’re behind bars, you could lose your job or lose custody of your children, and these collateral effects make it more likely that someone would accept an unfavorable plea bargain just to secure release. The goal is to move toward a pre-trial system where, if you’re a threat to others or you’re likely to purposefully skip court appearances, you’re detained, and if you don’t meet those criteria, you’re released while you await trial.
Another area of concern, wrongful convictions, is being addressed by Ohio’s Task Force on Conviction Integrity and Post-Conviction Review, of which I am a member. Our goal is to provide recommendations that will deliver swift and just avenues for post-conviction relief. These recommendations should be forthcoming later this year.
As Martin Luther King, Jr. once wrote from the Birmingham Jail, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Through that lens, the legislation passed last session was not so much an end as a beginning towards criminal justice reform in Ohio. I look forward to continuing that work with members of the 134th General Assembly.
David Leland, Esq.
Carpenter Lipps & Leland State Representative for Ohio House District 22 Ranking Member – House Criminal Justice Committee
