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AG Denn proposes legislation to reform Delaware's violent felony law

Anne Hoffman/Delaware Public Media

Attorney General Matt Denn is asking lawmakers to change Delaware’s Violent Felony Law.

If approved, legislation Denn is backing would strike drug possession without intent to sell from the state violent felony list. The Attorney General says simply possessing a small amount of drugs is not, in itself, a violent crime. Beyond that, it’s expensive."Some of these people who are serving very long jail sentences are costing the state a lot of money so to the extent that there are fewer people taking up spaces in our prisons, that allows us to have more money for things that we’d prefer to use them for, among them, drug treatment," Denn said.

The bill would also add two crimes to the category of statutory violent felonies. Those include the sexual solicitation of a child and resisting arrest with force or violence.

Senator Margaret Rose Henry (D-Wilmington East), the Senate Majority Whip, is co-sponsoring the bill along with Representative JJ Johnson (D-Jefferson Farms).  She says the new legislation would separate dangerous criminals from nonviolent offenders.

"What this will do is make it clearer to the courts what our intentions are and it will also continue to protect the public from hardened criminals who need to be put away," she said.

The legislation will be introduced this week as the General Assembly returns to work in Dover.