HARTFORD — Like the Senate on Thursday, the House did not vote Friday on Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s Second Chance Society bill, but members of both chambers have said they plan to address it next week.
“We’re going to pause on this and not do it today,” House Speaker J. Brendan Sharkey, D-Hamden, said after the House adopted Malloy’s budget, adding that there have been recent changes to the bill that require more time to review.
He said that after finishing the six-hour budget debate and subsequent vote, House members would likely be working “through the night, into tomorrow,” and bill proponents could diminish as that time went on, “similar to what the Senate problem was last night.”
“We just needed a little more time,” Sharkey said.
Sharkey said he feels there are enough votes to approve the bill, which will be brought up next week. He added that on Friday the house also held a land-conveyance bill to ensure that members will reconvene.
Malloy said the success of previous criminal justice reforms has led to a 48-year low in crime, a 40 percent decline in crime in the state’s three largest cites so far this year, and reduced prison populations and recidivism rates.
He said the proposed bill will help “young people over the stupid mistakes they’ve made” and save taxpayers from paying $120 per night to keep a person in jail who can’t afford to pay bail ranging from $250 to $2,000.
“When you have upwards of 550 people on any given night in jail” because they can’t afford that amount of bail, “you are in essence incarcerating them because of their poverty. I don’t think that that’s what we stand for,” he said.
In addition, Malloy said the bill would save the state about $15 million, much of which would come from pretrial incarceration “dropping substantially amongst that poor population.”
Malloy said earlier in the day that he continues to be open to suggestions to ensure the bill becomes law.
“If I have proven anything this legislative session it’s that I’m more than happy to compromise to reach a final product, and I’m also more than happy to lead to reach a final product,” he said. “Whatever needs to happen should happen.”
If either chamber fails to pass the legislation, it “would be a gigantic missed opportunity,” Malloy said.
He said that although he feels the Senate had the votes to pass the bill on Thursday, members chose not to take up the proposal because “hours were getting late, nerves were getting frayed, so they decided to put it off. We’ll come back and get it done.”
