On February 12, 2015, Congress reintroduced a vital piece of legislation which, if adopted into law, may well be the most important advancement for criminal justice in the 114th Congress.
What, you may ask, is the cause that’s inspiring such a rare burst of bipartisan collaboration and support? – Addressing mass incarceration. A diverse slew of Senators (Sens: Lee (UT), Durbin (IL), Cruz (TX), Leahy (VT), Flake (AZ), Booker (NJ), Paul (KY), Whitehouse (RI) and Coons (DE)) stood together in a press conference to announce their co-sponsorship of the Smarter Sentencing Act of 2015. This bill, an amended reintroduction of Senator Durbin and Senator Lee’s Smarter Sentencing Act (S. 1410/H.R. 3382), addresses injustices inherent in our current drug sentencing laws and should serve as a source of hope for effecting positive bipartisan change in the 114th congress. But what is in the bill, and why is there such collective energy behind sentencing reform?
In the past 30 years the federal prison population has increased more than 500% and more than half of those are in prison for nonviolent drug offenses. The cost of this mass-use of incarceration to the American tax-payer: $6.8 billion annually.
The Smarter Sentencing Act of 2015 seeks to heal our nation from its obsession with incarceration through the reduction of mandatory minimum sentences for low-level drug offenses, by restoring the individual discretion to judges through the upholding of the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 and by increasing transparency and accountability within the criminal justice system. Among the ways the Smarter Sentencing Act of 2015 works to reconstitute a bit of humanity into our criminal justice system is through its reduction of mandatory minimum sentences for “couriers”. The bill identifies persons whose involvement in drug offense was limited to transporting or storing drugs or money as “couriers”, and cuts their mandatory minimum sentences in half. This reduction of mandatory minimums allows the severity of sentences to better reflect the crimes for which they are being served and restores a bit of discretion to judges in sentencing.
The bill would also address an historic injustice in sentencing. Beyond restoring judges’ ability to be judges, it would make the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 retroactive, meaning that 8,800 people who are currently serving sentences for possession of crack-cocaine (sentences which Congress unanimously identified as racially discriminatory) would have the opportunity to petition to return to court for an individualized review of their case.
The Act also seeks to address over criminalization, and would require federal agencies to make public the lists of all federal crimes and their penalties. This important requirement would keep the spotlight on the criminal justice system, keeping it from becoming asks for a companion report documenting how many people were arrested for each crime to be made available to public. Legislators support The Smarter Sentencing Act for an array of reasons. Some support for the bill is rooted in the interest of saving federal dollars that could otherwise be used to address those types of criminal for whom incarceration was intended— inmates accused of more serious or violent offenses, and out of a desire to see the criminal justice system not used in place of a rehabilitation program. Much of the support for the bill is rooted in a desire to see our criminal justice system be a just system—and to restore the humanity in our sentencing processes by minimizing the power of mandatory minimums and allowing judges to reevaluate sentences based on their own review of individual cases.
There is need for criminal justice reform. The United States incarcerates more people than any other country in the world. To put it in perspective, consider the fact that the population of the United States makes up 5% of the world population and then consider that 25% of the world’s prison population is made up by the US. In the past 30 years the federal prison population has increased more than 500% and more than half of those are in prison for nonviolent drug offenses. The cost of this mass-use of incarceration to the American tax-payer: $6.8 billion annually.
The Smarter Sentencing Act of 2015 is a good bill, and it is vital legislation for the advancement of criminal justice reform. The nation has awoken to the realization that our criminal justice system is broken. We are out of space in our prisons, we are out of money in our budgets, and we are out of excuses to not do what is morally and practically right. 2015 is the year to pass the Smarter Sentencing Act.
