"Should a Judge Consider the Cost of a Sentence?"

The title of this post is the headline of this effective new piece at ABC News discussing Missouri's fascinating new sentencing tool providing "case-by-case invoices" of punishment costs to judges at the time they make sentencing decisions (details here).  Here are excerpts from the ABC News piece:

When judges in Missouri prepare to sentence an offender, they have a new tool unavailable to other judges across the country: an invoice detailing the cost to taxpayers of different sentencing options.

The information is part of an offense summary culled from statistics kept by the state's Bureau of Corrections that is tailored to the offender and also details the risk that he might re-offend....

The program was unveiled last month by the Missouri Sentencing Advisory Commission (MOSAC) as a tool to help judges determine the best chances for reducing recidivism with cost-effective punishments.

A judge or lawyer is able to enter specific information on the MOSAC website, such as an offender's prior criminal history, the crime committed, his education and employment status. The computer then uses statistics from other actual sentences to process the information.

For instance, a judge might plug in data regarding a 20-year-old offender with a high school diploma who was convicted of second-degree robbery and had no prior felonies. The online tool then would generate a report with a recommendation for probation with enhanced supervision that would cost $8,960 for a five-year period. If the offender were to receive such a sentence, his risk of committing a new offense within two years would be 29.7 percent.

However, the report also would contain information for the judge to consider if he believed there was a unique characteristic of the particular crime that would suggest a harsher sentence. That recommendation would be five years in prison for a cost of $54,724. The rate of recidivism for that sentence jumps to 39.6 percent. Missouri Supreme Court Judge Michael Wolff, chairman of the state's sentencing commission, said the new tool considers cost, but focuses on recidivism....

Judge Wolff asked, "Why not ask the question of how much this is going to cost?" But there are critics of the program.

Jennifer Joyce, the prosecuting attorney in the city of St. Louis, said, "It's ultimately cheaper to prosecute no one."  She isn't opposed to the information being available for judges and taxpayers, or to the concept of alternative sentencing, but she is concerned that sentencing decisions will be made on an economic basis.

 "Strictly speaking, economics is irrelevant to the decision that the judge makes, which is about public safety," she said. "If we are going to use economics as a basis to making these decisions, then we have to consider the economics of the victim and the community."

Judge Gary Oxenhandler, who sits on the 13th Judicial Circuit and has used the new tool, disagreed with her conclusion. He said cost is only one of many factors a judge should consider, including the threats to the community and the impact on the victim. "I want as much information as I can get," he said.

"Any place a judge can obtain information, that is an important source.  The prosecution has its goals, the defense has its goals.  Our job is to come up with the right amalgam that is going to best serve all these interests between protection of the public and punishment for the offender."

Helpfully, everyone can see an example of the data reports on recidivism and costs on the last two pages of the latest Smart Sentencing bulletin from the Missouri Sentencing Advisory Commission. I encourage everyone to check out the specifics of what Missouri is doing for its sentencing judges and to think about whether and how sentencing judges (and litigants) in all systems ought be get the benefits of all this helpful data.

Related post:

• Show-Me State now showing sentencing judges information about the costs of punishments