The Editorial Board of the Deseret News recently praised the bipartisan effort in Congress to reform our sentencing laws to give judges greater discretion when making sentencing decisions. As a federal prosecutor, I have had firsthand experience with a criminal justice system that imprisons too many people for too long. In order for America to reemerge as an opportunity society, we need to work on undoing some of the harmful effects of rigid federal sentencing laws that disproportionately and adversely affect America's lower-income families. I have worked closely with Senator Durbin (D-IL) to craft a bipartisan bill that will enable us to be both tough and smart on crime. Our bill, SB1410 The Smarter Sentencing Act, gives judges the discretion they need to improve our criminal justice system.
Momentum is building in the Senate to pass our bill, and momentum is also building across the country for prison sentencing reform as communities recognize the enormous social and financial costs of our current system. The first few paragraphs of this editorial by the Deseret News Editorial Board addresses many important aspects of this debate:
A bipartisan measure in Congress to roll back mandatory minimum prison terms is a welcome effort to reform federal criminal law sentencing. Excessive sentences harm individuals convicted, who sometimes spend decades in jail for drug crimes far less heinous than murder or rape. More importantly, unwarranted sentences harm our penal system, mocking principles of justice and mercy.
Current sentencing standards are the result of harsh anti-criminal measures dating to the late 1980s and early 1990s, as the use of crack cocaine in urban areas reached heightened proportions. Removing discretion from judges through the imposition of mandatory sentences for particular crimes was seen as a way to get tough on drug traffickers.
This has led to an explosion in the total prison population, which has more than tripled from 443,838 in 1984 to 1,537,414 in 2011.
I recommend reading the rest of the article to learn more about why momentum is building to pass these reforms: In our opinion: Roll back mandatory minimum sentences and allow judges to measure out punishment
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