An alliance of Tennessee’s top public safety officials has a short legislative agenda this year in its continuing effort to reduce crime and improve the administration of justice in the state. The proposed bills are sound — and merit approval by legislators.
The Tennessee Public Safety Coalition — an umbrella organization that represents the state’s sheriffs, chiefs of police and district attorneys general — wants to strengthen the penalty for those convicted of aggravated robbery, to improve staffing in district attorney offices and to strengthen the state’s judicial diversion statute. If adopted, the proposals would enhance, directly or indirectly, the safety and security of Tennessee’s residents.
More jail time for those convicted of aggravated robbery, coalition members say, would serve the cause of justice and public safety. Inexplicably, in 1995 the crime of aggravated robbery was omitted when laws were approved prohibiting the early release for prisoners incarcerated for over a dozen violent crimes. Amendment is needed.
Currently, those convicted of aggravated robbery — a very violent crime by definition — often are released after serving 30 percent of their sentence. Many of those released early, officials say, return to their communities to commit other crimes. The coalition’s proposal, if it becomes law, would increase the percentage of sentence a first-time offender convicted of aggravated robbery would have to serve to 74 percent. The measure might seem harsh, but law enforcement officials view it positively.
“What it does,” one coalition member told The Times Free Press editorial board on Tuesday, is keep a person who is likely to return to a life of violent crime off the street for a considerably longer time than is currently likely. “That means law-abiding citizens have one less potentially violent criminal on the streets in their community for an extended period of time.”