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NYT editorial: Smarter Sentencing
Smarter Sentencing
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
You know a transformational moment has arrived when the attorney general of the United States makes a highly anticipated speech on a politically combustible topic and there is virtually no opposition to be heard.
That describes the general reaction to Eric Holder Jr.’s announcement on Monday that he was ordering “a fundamentally new approach” in the federal prosecution of many lower-level drug offenders. What once would have elicited cries of “soft on crime” now drew mostly nods of agreement. As Mr. Holder said, it’s “well past time” to take concrete steps to end the nation’s four-decade incarceration binge — the result of harsh sentencing laws enacted in response to increased violent crime in the late 1960s and 1970s.
The statistics have been repeated so often as to be numbing: 1.57 million Americans in state and federal prisons, an increase of more than 500 percent since the late 1970s, at a cost of $80 billion annually. In 2010, more than 7 in 100 black men ages 30 to 34 years old were behind bars. The federal system alone holds 219,000 inmates, 40 percent above its capacity, thanks to strict sentencing guidelines and mandatory minimum sentences. Of these inmates, nearly half are in prison for drug-related crimes.
In Mr. Holder’s words, “too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long, and for no truly good law enforcement reason.” Many criminal-justice experts have long felt the same way. What made Mr. Holder’s speech timely and important was that it reflected a fundamental shift in thinking about crime and punishment at the highest levels of government.
- more -
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/14/opinion/smarter-sentencing.html
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
You know a transformational moment has arrived when the attorney general of the United States makes a highly anticipated speech on a politically combustible topic and there is virtually no opposition to be heard.
That describes the general reaction to Eric Holder Jr.’s announcement on Monday that he was ordering “a fundamentally new approach” in the federal prosecution of many lower-level drug offenders. What once would have elicited cries of “soft on crime” now drew mostly nods of agreement. As Mr. Holder said, it’s “well past time” to take concrete steps to end the nation’s four-decade incarceration binge — the result of harsh sentencing laws enacted in response to increased violent crime in the late 1960s and 1970s.
The statistics have been repeated so often as to be numbing: 1.57 million Americans in state and federal prisons, an increase of more than 500 percent since the late 1970s, at a cost of $80 billion annually. In 2010, more than 7 in 100 black men ages 30 to 34 years old were behind bars. The federal system alone holds 219,000 inmates, 40 percent above its capacity, thanks to strict sentencing guidelines and mandatory minimum sentences. Of these inmates, nearly half are in prison for drug-related crimes.
In Mr. Holder’s words, “too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long, and for no truly good law enforcement reason.” Many criminal-justice experts have long felt the same way. What made Mr. Holder’s speech timely and important was that it reflected a fundamental shift in thinking about crime and punishment at the highest levels of government.
- more -
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/14/opinion/smarter-sentencing.html
ACLU: How to Process Eric Holder’s Major Criminal Law Reform Speech
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023451453
3 replies
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