Mandatory Minimums
Massachusetts Steps Away from Mandatory Minimums
Published November 19, 2009 @ 08:57AM PT
The Massachusetts Senate yesterday passed a bill that would open the possibility of parole for prisoners convicted of nonviolent drug crimes. Many were sentenced under mandatory minimum laws and aren't currently eligible for parole. Finally, amidst budget difficulties, another state is seeing the light.
On its website, Families Against Mandatory Minimums profiles Robert Anger, a Massachusetts prisoner who could potentially be eligible for parole if the bill becomes law. Anger, from Vermont, became addicted to OxyContin as a teenager and soon transitioned to heroin. He began selling cocaine to support his habit and was arrested in Massachusetts in 2004 buying cocaine worth $15,000. He was 22 when a judge sentenced him under mandatory statute to 15 years in prison, saying "I wish I had discretion" as he did it. His full story is here.
"Sentences Are Way Too Long"
Published August 25, 2009 @ 04:41AM PT
Brown University economics professor Glenn Loury is the subject of a series of new short interviews at BigThink. He talks about decriminalizing drugs, reforming sentencing in the U.S. and the impact of an assault allegation on his own career. He goes on to say Obama's handling of the Gates issue distracted us from real issues surrounding race relations.
Talking about our broken criminal justice system, Loury says:
"Our sentences are way too long. You put a person in jail for five years or ten years or 20 years for the same crime...the deterrent value is essentially nothing, the research shows this. Three strikes and you're out laws, the laws that say you commit a crime three times and you can be sentenced to 25 years or life, they're madness as policy. They're expressive political symbols, capturing the anger of people at social dysfunction and allowing politicians to show that they're responsive to that anger."
Revisiting Three-Strikes Laws
Published August 11, 2009 @ 04:14PM PT
The pendulum is swinging on mass incarceration, and the notorious and ineffective three-strikes laws could fall across the country in the months and years ahead. States are broke, and they're looking at their corrections budgets (see the absurd spending numbers in yesterday's post) and realizing that locking people up for life for smoking crack might not have been the best idea.
Prosecutors in Washington State are bringing clemency petitions for people who served a decade or more under three-strikes laws and have never committed a violent crime. At least 100 people were sentenced to life without parole in the 1990s in Washington for three nonviolent crimes.
The L.A. Times reports today on the unusual steps being taken by Washington prosecutors, and highlights the case of Stevan Dozier (above), who was the first non-violent lifer in the nation granted clemency when he was freed in May.Today, Dozier is married and works at a Seattle nonprofit.
Twenty-four states still have three-strikes laws, despite a move toward judicial discretion over the last decade. These laws are applied more cautiously now than they were during the crack epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, but they need to be fully erased to guarantee that defendants are sentenced based on their crime and not outdated legislation.
Sunday Tweets: Live from New Haven, CT
Published August 02, 2009 @ 12:59PM PT
Blogging has been a bit light this week; I’ve just finished moving from Brooklyn, NY to New Haven, CT – so I’ve been without the interwebs (the horror!) for a few days. Thanks for the emails and comments over the last couple of days, I’ll be sorting through things tomorrow and getting back to you ASAP.
Here are some tweet-sized crime and punishment links from the week:
Drug-free school zones in Connecticut (my new home state!) are too large to make any logical sense (like most states), and therefore the enhanced charge is usually thrown out.
There’s an interesting conversation going on in the comments after my post this week on veterans’ courts, and here’s an in-depth report from the Colorado Springs Gazette on violent crime committed by vets.
Florida has banned prisoners from posting ads for pen pals and relationships.
1 in 11 Serving Life in Prison
Published July 23, 2009 @ 05:37AM PT
A new report from the Sentencing Project examines the prevalence of life sentences in the United States, and manages to put a finger directly on one of the primary reasons our prisons are overflowing - often with people who don't need to be there.
The report finds that 140,610 people are serving life in the U.S. - nearly 10% of all state and federal prisoners. And two-thirds of those prisoners are black or Latino. In California, a bastion of three-strikes laws where an early-release proposal has met opposition, one in five prisoners are serving life. In four other states - Alabama, Massachusetts, Nevada and New York - at least one in six prisoners are serving life. In New York, only 16 percent of the lifers are white.
More than 40,000 people are serving life without parole in the U.S., and this population has grown four times faster than the parole-eligible population this decade. The Sentencing Project opposes life without parole sentences.
“The expansion of life sentences suggests that we’re rapidly losing faith in the rehabilitation model,” Ashley Nellis, the report’s main author, told the New York Times.
Sentencing Reform Urged from All Sides
Published July 17, 2009 @ 05:47AM PT
This week, the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security heard testimony on mandatory minimums and sentencing reforms. While some other thing was sucking all of the media attention to the other side of the hill, the subcommittee heard some strong statements from unlikely allies on reforming sentencing laws in the U.S. But is it just more talk?
Doug Berman at Sentencing Law & Policy pointed to the testimony of Grover Norquist, the President of Americans for Tax Reform, whose trickle-down babble I usually find so unappealing. He told the committee in no uncertain terms that long sentences aren't working, and they're costing us too much:
The benefits, if any, of mandatory minimum sentences do not justify this burden to taxpayers. Illegal drug use rates are relatively stable, not shrinking. It appears that mandatory minimums have become a sort of poor man’s Prohibition: a grossly simplistic and ineffectual government response to a problem that has been around longer than our government itself.
A Prisoner Tour de France
Published June 11, 2009 @ 04:04PM PT
Dozens of French prisoners and corrections officers are pedaling around the scenic countryside this week on the first-ever Tour de France for the country's prisoners. A public-private partnership, the 1,500-mile bike ride is intended to challenge 200 prisoners who participate to improve their lives through athletic activity and build the kind of determination it takes to create a successful life after release.
The riders' sentences range from two to 25 years, and the tour makes stops in 17 towns around the country, picking up and dropping off riders at each. From the AP:
“Invariably, when any prison administration does these things, people will say, ‘Hang on, why is this happening? Aren’t they in there to be punished?” said Andrew Coyle, a professor of prison studies at King’s College, London, who spent 25 years as an overseer in British penitentiaries. “One understands that point of view. But if we’re serious about helping prisoners to reenter and to reintegrate, then we need to find opportunities to give them positive experiences.”
French victims groups agree.
“At a certain moment, you have to consider these people, these individuals, these prisoners as people who might one day once again take up the path of society, of community life,” said Sabrina Bellucci, director of the French National Institute for Victims’ Aid and Mediation. “I believe victims understand that very, very well.”
The article goes on, however, to point out that the tour is a bright light during a dark time for French prisons.
