The High Cost of Alabama's Habitual Felony Offender Act: A Preliminary Assessment

Abstract

A partial evaluation of Alabama's Habitual Felony Offender Act is conducted using case studies of inmates serving life without parole sentences. The centrality of the investigation focuses on the effect of the lift without parole sentencing, a practice which is assumed by many to be based on sound political practice, but may also be viewed as a questionable social policy. The authors suggest that Alabama's get-tough policy dealing with habitual criminals has effectively increased the prison population, but the consequences of the Act appears to be very costly in terms of the increasing number of L WOP inmates and the potential life threat to communities.

Settling Down Behind Bars

“…A few years after it entered into force, Peck and Jones (1985) conducted a preliminary assessment of the Statute by examining case-by-case the personal characteristics and criminal history of offenders sentenced under this law. They found that the act was drafted vaguely and has, as a result, led to the sentencing of often nonviolent offenders to life.…”

“…Also, of particular importance for an analyis of the state’s lifer population is Alabama’s Habitual Felony Offender Statute (HFOS), which entered into force in 1979 (Peck & Jones, 1985; Sigler & Culliver, 1988). The most salient clause of this law was that an offender convicted of a Class A felony would receive an automatic LWOP sentence with three prior convictions, no matter if the prior convictions were Class A felonies or not (Code of Alabama, 1975, 13A-5-9).…”