Mountaineers Are Always Free?!

By Kenny Matthews | WV Criminal Law Reform Coalition

The rallying cry of the state. But in criminal law, mountaineers are seldom free. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, West Virginia has an incarceration rate of 674 per 100,000 residents, making it higher than the national average and higher than every democratic country in the WORLD.

I saw the truth in these statistics while I was incarcerated in the system myself and now working as a criminal law reform advocate. The over-incarcerating of residents can be felt from every hill and holler. While the county jail bills are increasing exponentially, these out-of-control costs of incarceration are pulling resources from where we really need them. 

With West Virginia having some of the highest poverty rates in the country, one of the lowest in educational attainment, and having some of the poorest health outcomes, the question begs asked, what are we spending our money on? Travel any rural backroad and it’s easily apparent not on roads!

The legislature had a golden opportunity this year, as with previous years, to show the people of the state where their priorities lie. They could have passed legislation to ensure impoverished communities in the state like McDowell County, had access to clean usable drinking water, but they didn’t. 

They could have added funding for our public school system, that has seen more teachers laid off and schools closed than ever before, but they didn’t. They could have fully funded Medicaid to ensure that every West Virginian had access to healthcare, but they didn’t. The money that will be diverted to jail bills is conservatively in the tens of millions!

What they did is guarantee that the already overcrowded jail system and the increasingly aging prison population would cost the state and taxpayers more money. They passed policies like HB 4606 that restricted magistrates from issuing pr bonds (personal recognizance) on felony offenses like possession with intent to deliver (PWID). They passed SB 137 that increased the parole eligibility of offenses like homicide, voluntary manslaughter, and the 3 strikes law (those having two prior felony convictions and being found guilty of a subsequent felony offense, like possession with intent to deliver, in a twenty-year span).

The legislature made it apparent that their goal wasn’t to end the suffering of the most marginalized in the state. It wasn’t to give people a second chance after incarceration. They decided to even increase the amount of money someone has to pay while on supervision (HB 5444)! 

The attacks on people in poverty were clear. The message was resounding. They would rather spend more money on jail bills than keeping people housed, healthy, employed, and educated. 

County commissions around the state are looking at ways to solve these issues themselves. One such instance is that Kanawha County Commissioners are actively creating a panel to figure out how to decrease the county’s jail bill. Other commissioners have even suggested that the municipalities be responsible for some of the costs incurred by counties once their jail bill is maxed out.  Either way, these are our tax dollars that could be spent funding the really pressing needs of the people in our state. 

If these types of thoughts and actions aren’t telling as to how badly the counties are being affected, nothing does. There are many factors that impact crime, but all reputable studies show and prove that increasing penalties for offenses is not a deterrent to crime. In fact, in West Virginia, crime rates are down across the board WITHOUT wasting taxpayer money and resources on increasing penalties!

Until our state leaders take seriously the harms of over incarceration, and the costs to taxpayers, then our state motto, “Mountaineers Are Always Free!”, will just be wishful thinking than a statement of truth.

The time has come for all of us to lift up our voices and let our representatives in the state know what they truly need to be focused on. We need them to quit wasting time and money on policies that do nothing to make our state better, but instead ensure that we won’t have the money to help our families, neighbors, and communities. To learn more about criminal law reform policies and issues in the state follow us on Facebook WV Criminal Law Reform Coalition and subscribe to our Hubspot email list.