Sen. John Morse, D-Colorado Springs, argued on the Colorado Senate floor today that "Longer prison sentences haven’t helped us reduce crime at all." Morse's remarks raised eyebrows and drew a sharp rebuke from Senate Minority Leader Andy McElhany, R-Colorado Springs, who observed that if someone is in prison, "he can't be breaking into your home." The comments came during debate on a measure that will loosen sentences for convicts in order to save money in the corrections system.

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Full text of Sen. Morse's comments:

“Thank you Mr. Chairman. Respectfully, I have to disagree. We do not know in any way, shape, or form, that it is because of our increased prison sentences that crime has decreased. In fact, there are many other explanations that are much more palatable for it. Including, the decrease in the age cohorts for those are most likely to commit crimes. There is actually no, there is plenty of correlation, but there is not causation.

“Longer prison sentences haven’t helped us reduce crime at all. And in fact, we had testimony on another bill where one of the things that we have done fairly well in the state of Colorado is make sure people are in prison longer so that they have even less likelihood to be able to redeem themselves eventually and become productive members of society. We need to work toward making sure people get the appropriate punishment, but most of them don’t know the punishment before they commit the crime.

“So all this suggestion that prison really helps us keep people from committing crimes is very misguided and we’re going to have to make some decisions over the next several years to figure out how to actually reduce the crime rate instead of just claim to be tough on crime. And we’re seeing crime rates right now, right this minute, start to skyrocket, again. And yet, we have all these prisons, we have all these gun laws, none of this is helping. We’ve got to think outside the box.”

“Thank you Mr. Chairman. Sen. Morse, did I hear you correctly? Long sentences don’t reduce crime? Prisons don’t reduce crime? I don’t know how you can say that. There is one unalterable, unarguable fact. A human being cannot be in two places at the same time. If he’s in prison, he can’t be breaking into your home.”