Sentencing reform dies for third straight year after Fann blocks Senate vote
Arizona State Prison Complex - Lewis. Image from Google Earth
Arizona will continue to have some of the strictest criminal sentencing laws in the country after Senate President Karen Fann refused to let the Senate vote on a bill that would allow some nonviolent inmates to earn early releases.
With the legislative session nearing its end on Wednesday afternoon, Rep. Walt Blackman, R-Snowflake, told the
Arizona Mirror that Fann wouldn’t schedule Senate Bill 1064 for a vote in the Senate.
“It’s disheartening that we’re not doing more for criminal justice reform, being one of the few states left in the union that has failed to not only reform our system but to provide adequate programming for those people that are released,” Blackman said, expressing his “disappointment in our whole legislative system that we had a chance to keep communities safe, to reduce recidivism, lower the taxpayer costs, provide programming, and we just didn’t do it.”