From The Sentencing Project Newsletter
Overview
The United States maintains one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, incarcerating its residents at a substantially higher rate than any other industrialized nation. Certain state legislatures adopted criminal legal reforms in 2025, while other elected officials used punitive talking points to reinforce fears of crime. However, formerly incarcerated activists and lawmakers worked in certain cases to scale back mass incarceration. Advocacy organizers and officials in at least 10 states adopted criminal legal reforms in 2025 that may contribute to decarceration, guarantee voting rights for legal system-impacted citizens, and advance youth justice reforms.
Decarceration Reforms
State lawmakers enacted legal reforms to expand post-conviction release remedies. During 2025, policymakers in Delaware, Georgia, and Maryland adopted or expanded second look and rehabilitation-based release policies authorizing reconsideration of certain criminal legal sentences after a term of years.
Delaware policymakers passed Senate Bill 10, also known as the Richard “Mouse” Smith Compassionate Release Act, which expanded its sentence review process to all rehabilitated individuals who have served at least 25 years in prison, and to those over 60 years old who have served at least 15 years. The previous policy allowed sentence reviews for persons under 18 years old at the time of their offense and who served at least 20 years in prison.
Lawmakers in Georgia adopted House Bill 582, the Georgia Survivors Justice Act. The bill allows for sentencing courts to depart from statutory mandatory minimum penalties when abuse significantly contributed to the offense. The bill also authorizes resentencing for currently incarcerated survivors of domestic violence, dating violence, or child abuse by authorizing survivors to petition for a reduced sentence if their prior convictions were impacted by their abuse.
Maryland lawmakers established a “second look” policy with House Bill 853, allowing people ages 18–25 at the time of their offense to petition for sentence reconsideration after serving 20 years, excluding those convicted of crimes of a sexual nature or killing a first responder, and those sentenced to life without parole. Lawmakers also passed House Bill 1123, which broadens medical and geriatric parole. It allows release for anyone who is chronically debilitated or incapacitated and no longer poses a danger, regardless of standard parole timelines, and permits the state’s Parole Commission to consider geriatric parole for people 65 or older who have served at least 20 years.
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