Activists Complain They Were Locked Out Of Review Of Tennessee Sentencing Laws

Groups that represent African-Americans, prison inmates and defendants are saying they were locked out of a state task force on repeat offenders.

They want Gov. Bill Haslam to give them a seat at the table.

The Tennessee chapter of the NAACP is one of the organizations that says it should have been included in the Governor’s Task Force on Sentencing and Recidivism.

But the NAACP’s Lakeilia
Johnson says the group wasn’t even told at first that the task force existed. And so now they’re upset with its final report.

“It’s just common sense,” Johnson says. “If we increase the sentences, we are not letting people out of jail. We’re keeping more people in jail, and they’re going to be piled on top of each other.”

Johnson says the task force instead should have focused on the reasons many people are locked up to begin with. It’s often not because they’re hardened criminals. It’s because they fail to do to things like pay their traffic tickets on time.

“I mean, you’ve got pregnant women going to be booked and having to sit in holding cells for hours because of traffic violations, because they can’t afford to pay a ticket,” Johnson says. “Are you serious? This is a real serious problem. None of that was any of their concern.”

Activists say too many prosecutors and law enforcement officials wrote the task force’s recommendations. They say
 Haslam
should give groups that work with defendants and prisoners a chance to make their case before acting.