by Roy S. Johnson

A bill in the Alabama House would allow judges discretion to provide pregnant women sentenced to incarceration with 12 weeks of “pre-incarceration probation” to care for their child outside of prison walls after giving birth.

This is an opinion column.

150. One hundred and fifty incarcerated men and women.

One hundred and fifty incarcerated men and women sentenced to serving life without parole in a cage for a crime in which no one was seriously injured. Sentenced more than a quarter century ago under an outdated three-strikes-you’re-out law that was flushed in 2000, after these 150 men and women were locked away.

One hundred and fifty incarcerated men and women whose crimes were not a homicide or a sex offense, who would not have been sentenced to life without parole today.

Men and women likely in their 60s and beyond who are likely less danger to you and me than the air we breathe.

HB29, authored by Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa, an ardent purveyor of criminal injustice system reform, would have provided these 150 men and women with a second chance. With a chance to apply for a new sentence, a fair sentence—in many cases, that would mean freedom if the new sentence was mitigated by time served.

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