Senate to approve prison reform bill Thursday

The Minority Leader in the state House of Delegates says he sees a number of problems with the prison reform bill that could get the approval of the full Senate on Thursday.

Governor Earl Ray Tomblin’s proposal to reduce overcrowding in West Virginia’s prisons and regional jails is expected to run into some resistance when it next moves to the House of Delegates.

As proposed, the bill would require a year of mandatory supervision for violent offenders once they are out of prison and would release nonviolent offenders six months early to put them into supervised release programs.

Some of the recommendations in the bill, SB 371, are based on a comprehensive report from the Council of State Governments Justice Center.

For the past decade, the incarceration rate in West Virginia has been three times the national average, with many prison inmates forced to stay in regional jails because of a lack of space.

According to current estimates, without changes, the state’s prison population is expected to grow by another 24% over the next five years.