Here are two statistics worthy of perusal: Since 1980, the population of the United States has grown by about 40 percent; in that same period, the federal prison population has grown by about 800 percent.
It is not that a higher percentage of Americans have turned to breaking the law, nor have we been overrun by a criminal element. It simply is a matter of draconian sentencing laws that have conflated nonviolent drug crimes with more dangerous activities and have bloated federal prisons well beyond capacity. Along the way, studies show, the mass incarceration of people for nonviolent drug convictions has done little to make the public more safe.
The Obama administration has led the way in the past two years in developing more reasonable sentencing guidelines, and now Congress is getting involved. In the end, ideally, the efforts will make for a more sensible approach to corrections in this country.
Last year, the U.S. Sentencing Commission — an independent agency that sets sentencing guidelines for federal crimes — reduced mandatory sentences for drug offenses; it then made those changes retroactive. As a result, the federal prison system two weeks ago released about 6,000 prisoners who had served their time under the new guidelines. According to The Seattle Times, 42 of those were released to Washington state, most of them coming from a federal halfway house or being freed from home confinement.
To be released, an inmate needed to petition a federal judge, and reports indicate that about one-quarter of petitions have been denied. Senior U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein told CNN: “The first question the judge asks himself is, ‘If I release this person now or shorten the sentence now, will he be a greater danger to the community? The statistics very clearly say ‘no.’ ”
That always must be the question when it comes to fighting crime and to sentencing those who have been convicted. During the height of the “War on Drugs” during the 1980s and 1990s, it became popular for politicians to demonstrate they are tough on crime by supporting mandatory sentencing laws. These days, political leaders and the public increasingly are recognizing that such rhetoric has been ineffective, and there is strong bipartisan support in Congress for the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2015. “For too long,” Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said, “one-size-fits-all punishments have put so many Americans behind bars for long periods of time for drug use when treatment and rehabilitation would better serve them and their communities.”
The United States has the largest prison population in the world, and nearly 1 in every 100 adults is incarcerated. This creates an impact that hampers a convict’s ability to secure employment or housing for the rest of their lives; that tears apart families; and that costs taxpayers about $30,000 a year for each federal inmate. Roughly $9 billion of the Department of Justice’s $27 billion budget goes to maintaining and operating federal prisons.
Undoubtedly, many convicts must remain locked up in the name of public safety. But it is long past time for more distinction to be made between nonviolent crimes and those involving violence; it is long past time for more distinction to be made in sentencing low-level drug dealers and those who oversee expansive enterprises.
For three decades, Americans have been tough on crime. Now we need to be smart on crime.
