In this post last month about the new secretary of the Pennsylvania pardon board, I recalled Judge Marvin Frankel famously urging the creation of a "Commission on Sentencing" and the appointment of "former or present prison inmates" to the commission because "the recipients of penal 'treatment' must have relevant things to say about it." Frankel's long-ago advocacy and this new story out of Minnesota prompts the wondering in the title of this post. The press article is headlined "'Incarceration survivor' vows to add missing perspective to Minnesota's sentencing commission," and here are excerpts:
Before she was a teen, Tonja Honsey knew what it was like to be under court supervision. Decades — and several jail stints — later, she almost lost her youngest child while four months pregnant and behind bars on a probation violation. "I say that I'm an incarceration survivor," Honsey said.
The 42-year-old St. Paul woman has since found sobriety and built a deep résumé as a criminal justice reformer, a different type of record that led Gov. Tim Walz to put her on the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission.
When Honsey arrives for her first meeting later this week she will join a new panel of jurists, law enforcement and legal officials tasked with recommending changes to the Legislature and the courts on how Minnesotans should be punished and rehabilitated for their crimes. Believed to be the first woman to serve on the commission after having served time behind bars, Honsey brings a wealth of experience helping mothers and pregnant inmates in the years since her return to society. She also brings direct knowledge, having bounced back from the receiving end of Minnesota's criminal justice system.
Growing up in what she describes as a dysfunctional family, Honsey found herself turned over to state-run institutions after repeatedly running away from home at an early age. She later cycled into selling drugs to make ends meet while on her own, and eventually using them to cope with childhood trauma. Her record also includes charges for check forgery and theft. Her most serious drug crime was in Freeborn County: a 2002 conviction for second-degree controlled substance, after a clandestine meth lab bust near Maple Island....
Hers is a perspective, she said, that the sentencing commission could use. "The shift needs to turn from people who have gone to school to learn about re-entry, to where people who are directly impacted need to be the ones leading," Honsey said. "And not just brought in for a focus group. We actually need to be leading the charge."
She will serve with several other new members. Walz also appointed Kelly Lyn Mitchell, who leads the University of Minnesota's Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice, as new chairwoman of the commission. Abby Honold, a Minnesota rape survivor who has been a leading voice on working to improve how police handle rape cases, will be a new commissioner representing Minnesotans who have been the victims of a crime. Walz said his appointments are intended to "ensure that a diversity of perspectives is represented when making these life-altering decisions."...
Dan Cain, president of RS Eden, was the first former inmate to serve on the commission when he was tapped in its early stages in 1982. He eventually went on to chair the group. Minnesota was the first state to create a body to study sentencing policy in 1978 and, two years later, issued the nation's first set of sentencing guidelines for state court judges.
"I think that my being on the commission was recognition by the commission members that not everyone shared their worldview," said Cain, who is 47 years sober and was pardoned for a series of burglary and forgery crimes committed in the 1970s. "I think a mistake policymakers make often is they believe the same things that motivate and deter them are the same things that motivate and deter everyone."
I am inclined to guess that Minnesota has now set a record by having two formerly incarcerated persons serve on its sentencing commission, and I really wonder how many states have had even one such person as a commission member. I am nearly certain that none of the 30+ members of the US Sentencing Commission over the last 35 years have had such a background.
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