From Brookings
Addressing mass incarceration with evidence-based reform
By William A. Galston and Elizabeth McElvein
Across partisan, ideological, and racial lines, Americans are rethinking the country’s criminal justice system. The Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act (S. 2123) and the Sentencing Reform Act of 2015 (H.R. 3713) have passed out of the Senate and House Judiciary Committees respectively and earned support from a bipartisan group of elected officials, the White House, and advocacy organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union and Koch Industries.
Criminal justice reform must strike a balance between reducing the federal prison population and safeguarding the public from crime. The Senate bill, as well as its House companion, would reduce mandatory minimum sentence length for certain offenders and expand recidivism reduction programming. According to Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act addresses “legitimate over-incarceration concerns while targeting violent criminals and masterminds in the drug trade.” Recently, however, Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) has led a cadre of conservatives in objecting to criminal justice reform. Speaking on the floor of the Senate, Cotton declared the legislation a “massive social experiment in criminal leniency…[that] threatens to undo the historic drops in crime we have seen over the past 25 years.” To understand the state of the nation’s criminal justice system and evaluate the challenges and opportunities of the proposed reform, let us first consider the magnitude of the U.S. incarcerated population.
To understand the state of the nation’s criminal justice system and evaluate the challenges and opportunities of the proposed reform, let us first consider the magnitude of the U.S. incarcerated population. Read more
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