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Newsbrief:
American
Bar
Association
Report
Calls
for
"Smart
on
Crime"
Approach,
End
to
Mandatory
Minimum
Sentences
6/25/04
In a report issued Wednesday,
the American Bar Association (ABA) has called for abolishing mandatory
minimum sentences, as well as a host of other measures that would reverse
years of "tough on crime" policies. The report by the ABA's Justice
Kennedy Commission urges a fundamental change of course toward less reliance
on incarceration and greater attention to more effective alternatives.
"For more than 20 years,
we have gotten tougher on crime," said ABA President Dennis W. Archer.
"Now we need to get smarter. We can no longer sit by as more and
more people -- particularly in minority communities -- are sent away for
longer and longer periods of time while we make it more and more difficult
for them to return to society after they serve their time. The system
is broken. We need to fix it."
The study of criminal justice
policy was the ABA's response to a speech given by US Supreme Court Justice
Anthony Kennedy at the ABA's 2003 annual meeting in San Francisco.
In that speech, Kennedy called for the legal profession to address the
"inadequacies -- and the injustices -- in our prison and correctional systems."
The Justice Kennedy Commission
report does not yet represent the position of the ABA, the nation's largest
lawyers' group and the world's largest voluntary professional association,
with some 400,000 members. But it will be considered by the ABA House
of Delegates for adoption as policy at its Annual Meeting in Atlanta on
August 9 and 10.
The report's recommendations
cover four primary sets of issues: sentencing and incarceration issues,
racial and ethnic disparities in criminal justice systems, prison conditions
and prisoner reentry issues, and pardons and clemency processes.
Among its recommendations:
-
Repeal mandatory minimum sentences;
-
Study and fund alternatives
to incarceration for offenders who may benefit from treatment for substance
abuse and mental illness;
-
Develop and implement policies
and procedures to combat racial and ethnic profiling;
-
Implement prison policies and
programs that, from the beginning of incarceration, assist prisoners in
preparing to reenter society by providing, for example, substance abuse
treatment, educational and job training opportunities, and mental health
counseling and services;
-
Identify and remove unnecessary
legal barriers that prevent released inmates from successfully reentering
society;
-
Establish community partnerships
that include corrections and police officers, prosecutors, and community
representatives committed to promoting successful reentry into the community
and that measure their performance by the overall success of reentry;
-
Expand the use of executive
clemency to reduce sentences, as well as other processes by which persons
who have served their sentences can request a pardon, restoration of legal
rights and relief from collateral disabilities;
-
Establish criminal justice racial
and ethnic task forces to study and make recommendations concerning racial
and ethnic disparity in the various stages of the criminal justice process;
and
-
Establish reentry clinics in
law schools in which students assist individuals who have been imprisoned
and are seeking to reestablish themselves in the community, regain legal
rights, or remove collateral disabilities.
"These recommendations are intended
to make our criminal justice systems more effective and to utilize our
limited resources more efficiently," said the commission's chair, Steven
Saltzburg. "For too long we have focused almost exclusively on locking
up criminals. We also need to look at the other side of the coin:
what happens when they get out. We have to remember that roughly
95% of the people we lock up eventually get out. Our communities
will be safer and our corrections budgets less strained if we better prepared
inmates to successfully reenter society without returning to a life of
crime."
Saltzburg highlighted the
injustice of harsh mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenders.
"Mandatory minimum sentences tend to be tough on the wrong people," he
said. The commission noted that the average federal drug trafficking
sentence was 72.7 months in 2001. By comparison, the average federal
manslaughter sentence was 34.3 months, the average assault sentence was
37.7 months, and the average sexual abuse sentence was 65.2 months.
Read the ABA's Justice Kennedy
Commission report and associated documents at http://www.manningmedia.net/Clients/ABA/ABA288/
online.
-- END --
|
Issue #343, 6/25/04
Editorial: Ruling Creates More Questions Than Answers |
Like a Rock: New York's Rockefeller Drug Laws Survive Another Legislative Session |
When Remaining Silent Is a Crime: US Supreme Court Rules Cops Can Arrest Those Who Refuse to Identify Themselves |
Initiatives on the Move: Ann Arbor, Berkeley, Oakland, Montana Added to Upcoming Marijuana Reform Votes This November |
DRCNet Interview: Jude Renaud, Executive Director, Educators for Sensible Drug Policy |
Newsbrief: Is Cecil Knox the Godfather? Feds Indict Southwest Virginia Pain Specialist Cecil Knox for Third Time, Aim to Win Racketeering Conviction |
Newsbrief: Florida Pain Doctor Found Guilty of Illegal Prescribing |
Newsbrief: California Pharmacist to Go on Trial for Filling Oxycontin Prescriptions |
Newsbrief: Two Rulings Could Affect Federal Sentencing |
Newsbrief: American Bar Association Report Calls for "Smart on Crime" Approach, End to Mandatory Minimum Sentences |
Newsbrief: Utah Supreme Court Upholds Religious Peyote Use by Non-Indians |
Newsbrief: Marijuana Candy Bars Appear in Bay Area |
Newsbrief: This Week's Corrupt Cops Story |
New Jersey Needle Exchange Update |
This Week in History |
Students for Sensible Drug Policy Chapter Grants |
The Reformer's Calendar
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