Hancock’s jail sentencing reforms send a better message to immigrants.

DenverMayorMichael Hancock’s plan to reform low-level jail sentences, and in doing so protect immigrants from deportation, makes a lot of sense and has a lot of heart.

The new sentencing structures would alert Immigration and Customs Enforcement to truly bad actors, but would avoid what amounts to reckless notification of federal officials when immigrants commit low-level violations that pose little threat to overall public safety. The new sentences would also add a hate-crime enhancer.

Hancock’s ideas align with the Obama administration’s more humane stances on deportation that continued a decades’ long tolerance of undocumented immigrants who stayed off law enforcement’s radar screen.

The timing of the reform effort serves as a needed antidote to the poisonous fears the Trump administration’s crackdown instills in already vulnerable communities. But that’s not all. The proposed sentencing changes also would prove more just to low-level offenders of all backgrounds, while also easing crowded conditions at the jail— a plus for taxpayers.

Since the “Summer of Violence” days in 1993, Denver has relied on a one-size-fits-all approach in sentencing misdemeanors and other violations of city ordinances: up to 365 days in jail and $999 in fines. Before then, maximum stays had been set at 180 days.

Themayor’s goal is to instead place offenses into three broad categories that reduce punishments for all but the most serious violations. That is in line with broader sentencing reforms and arguably past due.

The number to watch in all of this is 365. Under federal law, ICE is notified when any immigrant, whether here legally or otherwise, is handed a conviction that could come with a year-long, or 365-day, jail sentence. ICE is notified even if the judge doesn’t give the maximum sentence.

Under the mayor’s proposal, low-level infractions, like urinating in public, would see a reduced sentencing range of no more than 60 days and no fines. Mid-level abuses, like trespassing and low-level assault, would cap jail stays at 300 days and leave fine levels as they are now. Top-level offenses would remain unchanged.

“We are not going to shield violent criminals,” Hancock tells us, and rightly so. Some council members and immigrant advocates are calling for the most-serious category of sentences to stop at 364 days, in order to protect even this class of lawbreakers from ICE notification. That’s unwise, and it undercuts their credibility on the overall debate.

What about domestic violence offenders? The mayor’s plan would allow first and second-time abusers to fall in to the middle class of sentences, as long as their assaults didn’t result in bodily harm. A third offense or needed medical attention for the victim elevates the charge to the top class, if not state court.

Hancock says experts who deal with domestic violence say abusers can be rehabilitated if treated early, and multiple victim’s advocates testified in favor of the mayor’s plan at a committee meeting. Victims shouldn’t fear calling police to de-escalate an argument heading toward violence because they or their husband could be deported. Denver County Court’s presiding judge, Theresa Spahn, testified that all 17 judges on the court support the sentencing changes.

Some council members understandably question whether the new sentences are being rushed, and note that a lack of data makes it impossible to predict whether the new rules would actually reduce crowding at the jail. We would expect that the new sentencing structure would ease crowding.

The proposal strikes us as fair, sound and worthwhile.