ALEC's Efforts to Rewrite Laws about Americans' Rights
Guns, Prisons, Crime, and ImmigrationThe bills on this page represent ALEC corporations' efforts to support the private prison industry by putting more people in jail, to interfere with rehabilitative incarceration alternatives, to perpetuate the failed "war on drugs," to prop up the commercial bail-bond industry, to put more guns on streets, and to criminalize immigrants. These "model bills" are drafted at American Legislative Exchange Council conventions with input from, and approval by, Big Business, then introduced in state legislatures to erode the democratic power of average Americans. Politicians are elected to represent the people, not corporations; through ALEC, corporations have both a VOICE and a VOTE on specific state laws. Do you?
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Learn MORE about the "Model Bills" ALEC Corporations Are Backing to Rewrite YOUR Rights
The Center for Media and Democracy analyzed the bills ALEC politicians and corporations voted for. More analysis is available below and also at ALEC Exposed's sister sites, PRWatch and SourceWatch.
How Are Corporations Interfering With Our Criminal Justice System?
Corporations and their politician allies VOTED behind closed doors through ALEC to change America's criminal justice system by:
Enacting new barriers to community-based corrections (7C2, 7C3), which will increase prison populations and the profits of the private prison industry
Anti-immigrant legislation that requires local law enforcement to enforce complex federal law, encourages racial profiling, and destroys the law enforcement-community relationship
Overturning common-law rules designed to deter police misconduct and ensure arrests and searches are constitutional, including:
reversal of the “Exclusionary Rule” for unlawfully obtained evidence (7D1) and
elimination of the “hearsay rule” when determining whether probable cause existed (7D2)
Adding new penalties to retail theft (which will benefit Private Sector Board Member Wal-Mart), such as:
adding a penalty enhancer for thieves who use the emergency exit (7B8), and
regardless of the value of the property stolen, making it a felony to steal from three retail establishments (7B7)
Imposing new regulations on swap meets and flea markets that may compete with retail stores(7B5)
Perpetuating the war on drugs through:
mandatory minimum sentencing for drug crimes (7D6)
requiring university students convicted of any drug crime be suspended and lose financial aid (7F4),
promoting drug testing in workplaces (7F14), and
suspending driver’s licenses for all persons convicted of drug crimes (7Q5)
Including victims in the parole decision, even though victim anger has little to do with a person’s likelihood of recidivism or rehabilitiation, but will lengthen prison sentences (7D7) (see also Constitutional Amendment 7R1), (sentencing decision 7R3)
Imposing unrealistic conditions for parolees or persons on probation, setting them up for failure and re-incarceration
Blaming homeowners for the mortgage crisis by creating the crime of “mortgage fraud” (7I1)
Opposing the collection of personal information in pawnbroking (7I2)
Supporting the National Rifle Association agenda through legislation and resolutions that:
Puts guns on college campuses (7J1)
Supports "concealed carry" gun laws through, for example, recognition of concealed carry laws from other states, (with reciprocity 7J4), and (without reciprocity 7J3).
Prohibits local counties or cities from enacting firearm restrictions (7J5)
Opposes efforts by law enforcement to use their purchasing power to pursue public safety ends by asking gun manufacturers not to market weapons for criminal use (7J7)
Opposes the ability for law enforcement officers to seize guns and ammunition in declared “states of emergency” (7J8)
Opposes waiting periods for firearm purchases (7J10)
Opposes bans on semi-automatic firearms (like the one used in the Arizona shooting that killed 9 people and seriously injured Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords) (7J11)
Puts guns in kid's hands (7J9)
Promoting legislation to treat juveniles as adults and creating new legislation with new penalties for juvenile offenders (7L0)
Subjecting juveniles to the same lineup requirements as adults (7L1)
Propping-up the commercial bail-bond industry that has a record of corrupting the sentencing process, and puts the decision of whether an accused person goes free in the hands of a profit-oriented business, through legislation that:
attacks efforts to enact evidence-based alternative pre-trial release programs by imposing new reporting requirements on pre-trial release agencies
offers bail bond companies opportunities to avoid paying debts to states by:
allowing debts to expire (7A4) or
imposing notification technicalities on courts (7A5)
expanding the list of offenses for which a person must pay a for-profit bail-bondsman for their release (7A11) (7A9) (7A1)
Did You Know about these Bills?
Some of this Corporate Agenda Has Already Become Law
When current Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was a state representative, he was an ALEC member and introduced (several?) bills proposed by ALEC, including "Truth in Sentencing." Passed in Wisconsin in 1997, the bill requires inmates serve their full sentence without options for parole or supervised release.
The program has inflated prison populations and greatly increased the amount of taxpayer dollars spent on prisons (in Wisconsin, to an estimated $1.8 billion through 2025). All of which increases profits for private prison companies like the Corrections Corporation of America, a member of the ALEC Private Sector board.
A former head of Wisconsin's prison system (and current University of Wisconsin Law Professor) Walter Dickey told American Radio Works it is "shocking" that lawmakers would write sentencing policy with help from ALEC, a group that gets funding from, and supposedly "expertise" from a private prison corporation.
"I don't know that they know anything about sentencing," he said. "They know how to build prisons, presumably, since that's the business they're in. They don't know anything about probation and parole. They don't know about the development of alternatives. They don't know about how public safety might be created and defended in communities in this state and other states."
The Wisconsin state legislature apparently recognized the folly of Truth in Sentencing and rolled-back the law between 2001 and 2009. When Scott Walker became governor, he reversed this progress and requested legislation restoring the ALEC corporation-supported Truth in Sentencing, despite the costs to taxpayers and despite claiming Wisconsin was "broke."
To learn more about this story, click here or here. (Have any of these bills been introduced or enacted in YOUR state? If so, please add that information to the ALEC Exposed page on your state by searching for your state's name in the search engine at the top of this page.)
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