Pubdate: Fri, 17 Jul 2015
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2015 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491

TOO MANY BEHIND BARS

The President Visits a Federal Prison and Makes a Strong Case for 
Sentencing Reform.

PRESIDENT OBAMA went somewhere Thursday that, according to the White 
House, no other sitting president ever has: a federal prison.

His point was that no advanced society should be comfortable with the 
way this country punishes crime.

The nation locks up too many people for too long, and it too often 
treats them poorly behind bars. In part because of Mr. Obama-but also 
because of a strong left-right alliance that includes the Koch 
brothers, the American Civil Liberties Union and others in between- 
change could come very soon. If, that is, Congress acts.

The case for reform starts with the eye-popping fact that the United 
States has 5 percent of the world's population but 25 percent of its 
prisoners, in large part because of drug crime sentences.

The country's federal imprisonment rate is up more than five times 
from 1980, multiplying federal prison costs by nearly six times, 
according to the Pew Charitable Trusts. "Up to a certain point, 
tougher prosecutors and stiffer sentences for these violent offenders 
contributed to the decline in violent crime over the last few 
decades," Mr. Obama conceded this week. But, he added, "the science 
also indicates that you get a point of diminishing returns," 
particularly when nonviolent and low-level offenders get hit with 
harsh sentences.

Mass incarceration also seems plainly impractical because there are a 
variety of more appealing options that many states have been 
experimenting with. The state prison population dropped between 2003 
and 2013, while the federal prison population increased.

While many states are looking at innovative ways to treat people more 
fairly and save money, the Justice Department is seeing an 
ever-larger percentage of its budget go to prison spending.

Mr. Obama and a bipartisan gaggle of federal lawmakers want to apply 
the states' insights to the federal system.

The most significant bill on the table - the House's Safe, 
Accountable, Fair, and Effective (SAFE) Justice Act - would reserve 
drug trafficking life sentences and other major penalties for drug 
bosses rather than low-level dealers, give more sentencing 
flexibility to judges and focus federal resources away from drug 
possession enforcement. It would create specialized courts for drug 
crimes and the mentally ill. It would also put a much greater 
emphasis on prison programming - job training, mental-health care, 
substance-abuse treatment - and better postrelease supervision.

The bill isn't perfect.

It wouldn't give felons who have served their time the right to vote 
in federal elections, for example.

Nor would it do enough to cut back on the rampant overuse of solitary 
confinement. "Do we really think it makes sense to lock so many 
people alone in tiny cells for 23 hours a day, sometimes for months 
or even years at a time?" Mr. Obama asked this week. States such as 
Colorado, Maine and Mississippi are drastically reducing their use of 
solitary. Mr. Obama has ordered a Justice Department review.

But Congress doesn't need to wait for the results; the horrifying 
scandal of America's overuse of solitary confinement is already well-known.

House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) promised Thursday to give 
floor time to criminal justice reform.

Lawmakers should take the opportunity to be as comprehensive as possible.

A smarter justice system less focused on long prison terms and more 
focused on fitting punishments to crimes and preventing recidivism 
would be truer to the country's commitment to individual liberty and 
almost certainly better for government finances and community cohesion.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom