Truth In Sentencing Policies and the Effects on Courts and Prisons

The tension between rehabilitation and punishment has been increasing dramatically. This is because there have been sharp rises in the prison population and repeat offender rates. When one area is over emphasized in relation to the other, there is the possibility that imbalances will occur. Over the course of time, these issues can create challenges that will impact the criminal justice system and society at large. (Gadek, 2010) (Clear, 2011) (Gatotch, 2011)

If mass incarceration is a cancer of society, mandatory minimum sentencing laws are the tumors that exacerbate society’s condition. These mandatory minimum sentencing laws require a certain length of prison time if

Truth in sentencing laws are generally popular with victim’s right advocates because those laws make it so that the criminal serves almost their whole sentence they were originally given. With these laws in most states the prisoner has to serve 85% of their sentence ("Truth in Sentencing”).

The United States prison population has grown seven-fold over the past forty years, and many Americans today tend to believe that the high levels of incarceration in our country stem from factors such as racism, socioeconomic differences, and drugs. While these factors have contributed to the incarceration rate present in our country today, I argue that the most important reason our country has such a high incarceration rate is the policy changes that have occurred since the 1970s. During this time, the United States has enacted policy changes that have produced an astounding rise in the use of imprisonment for social control. These policy changes were enacted in order to achieve greater consistency, certainty, and severity and include sentencing laws such as determinate sentencing, truth-in-sentencing, mandatory minimum sentencing, and three strikes laws (National Research Council 2014). Furthermore, I argue that mandatory sentencing has had the most significant effect on the incarceration rate.

The Sentencing Project is a 501c3 nonprofit dedicated to creating a fairer criminal justice system (The Sentencing Project, 2015). Founded in 1986, they research and advocate for many criminal justice issues, one of which is racial disparities in mass incarceration. In 2015 alone the organization worked tirelessly to raise awareness of the racial disparity in mass incarceration. They did this through letters to the editor in publications like the New York Times, publishing comprehensive research and recommendations for ending the racial disparity in mass incarceration such as their publication Black Lives Matter: Eliminating racial inequality in the criminal justice system and The Color of Justice: Racial and Ethnic Disparity in State Prisons. Last year their executive director delivered testimony to agencies, such as the Charles Colson Federal Corrections Task Force, as well as the Senate Judiciary Committee on the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act, a version of which both the House and Senate have now adopted. They have also provided technical assistance, testimony, and research to state level legislation and lawsuits across the United States. Members of their executive team testified or assisted in hearings in over 15 states in 2015 including the Maryland state legislature at a hearing on felony

Secondly, they should be addressed the needs of offenders and the deficits in their lives that contributed to their offending. And thirdly, sentences should not be severe, intrusive, or damaging to an offender’s later decarceration to live a righteous life than is minimally necessary to achieve valid purposes of the sentence he or she receives (Tonry 508). An addition to these are proportionality, which means that sentences should correspond in severity to the seriousness of the crimes which they are inflicted. Also, regularity, which signifies that sentences should be guided by official standards to make the process clear, procedures fair, and allow judges to be more accountable (Tonry 508). Moreover, the American Criminal Code must be taken into consideration. Two features must be altered if the sentencing is to become fair, effective, and just. Firstly, the harsh sentencing laws must be revoked, and secondly the limits, that matches the offense seriousness, must be put on the lawful sentences (Tonry 514). Moreover, Tonry mentioned about future changes that, “If adopted, they would greatly reduce the number of people in prison in future years, but their adoption would not significantly reduce the scale of American imprisonment in 2015 or in 2020. Doing that will require enactment of new laws authorizing reconsideration of sentences now being served (Tonry 523).

Mandatory minimum sentencing laws entail binding prison terms to a certain length for people who have been convicted of state or federal crimes. These intransigent, “universally adaptable” sentencing laws may seem like an easy and quick solution for crime. However, these laws prevent judges from suiting the punishment to the criminal according to their offenses. Mandatory minimum sentencing causes not only state but federal prisons to overcrowd, extortionate tax costs, and deflect from law enforcement funds.

Between 1993 and 1995, twenty four states enacted three strikes sentencing policy which calls for much harsher sentencing of repeat felony offender. Most sentences for these repeat offender called for a minimum punishment of a life sentence with possibility of release until twenty five years have been served (1 Marvell, Moody 89). These laws where created to target and punish what lawmakers believed to be the small percentage of criminals that where committing the majority of serious crimes such as murder, rape, kidnaping, aggravated robbery, aggravated assault, and sexual abuse.

The second supporting argument that Parliament imposes the judiciary to place too much emphasis on incarceration is characterized by the reduction of credit for pre-sentence custody credit. Fortunately, this was amended in 2014. The Truth in Sentencing Act, one of the government’s early “tough on crime” laws was passed in 2009, but became operative on Feb. 22, 2010. This Act contributed to the changes regarding the credit offenders received for pre-sentence detention or “dead-time,” that does not count towards any parole or early release eligibility. This curbed judge’s ability to give a break on sentencing when a convicted offender has spent lengthy time in pre-trial jail custody. This discount in sentencing had evolved to recognize that

Prior to the amendment of the Sentencing Reforming Act, Federal Judges had the freedom of imposing different length of sentence for each criminal. This resulted in a disparity among inmates on the length of time served. To prevent this, the sole purpose of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 was to revise the federal criminal sentencing policy into a uniform guideline. The aim is to maintain integrity in the length of sentence in the justice system for each inmate, while providing judges the freedom to manipulate the length of sentence to better fit the crime.

The criminal justice system in the United States is not a single system, but rather a combined network of systems, reconfigured as one. This means that communication and transparency is even more important than it might be within a more one dimensional system. Mandatory minimum sentencing laws require binding prison terms for people convicted of certain federal and state crimes. These inflexible, “one-size-fits-all” sentencing laws may seem like a quick-fix solution for crime, but they undermine justice by preventing judges from fitting the punishment to the individual and the circumstances of their offenses. One question being considered within the legal community now is, while new crimes are being recognized as they are committed, should mandatory minimums really be “mandatory”, or should they be “suggested”, and serve more as a guideline, while the actual sentence is left to the discretion of the court? Not all crime is created equal and motive, or lack thereof, are factors that should play a role in the court’s determination of an appropriate sentence, should one in fact be imposed

Mandatory penalties have not always been a central feature of the U.S. criminal justice system (Subramanian, Ram and Delaney R, 2014). Until the 1980s, sentencing in the United

I am going to begin by discussing the violent crime. There are 4 main classes of violent crime. These classes consist of: Murder and Negligient Homicide, Forcible Rape, Robbery and Aggravated Assault. These crimes are usually defined as offenses that include force or the threat of force. The violent crimes are listed under the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program. There are other crimes which classify as violent crimes, these include: Burglary, Larceny-theft and Motor Vehicle theft. The FBI uses a system to classify crimes from the worst crime, Murder and Negligient Homicide, being at the top of the list, and the least serious crime, Motor Vehicle theft, being at the bottom of the list. One crime which is listed on both violent crimes and property crimes is Arson, depending on the circumstances surrounding the offense at the time.

This belief indicated that if offenders could not be rehabilitated then they should be punished and it was time to get tough on crime. Within a relatively short time parole was attacked and the individual approach of indeterminate sentencing, or release by the authority of a parole board was abolished in 16 states (Rhine, Smith, and Jackson, 1991) and some form of determinate sentencing was adopted in all 50 states (Mackenzie, 2000)].

Even though the criminal justice system has guidelines to following when sentencing criminals, there are still sentencing issues. In other words, to make the sentencing more fair and equal, several issues have been addressed. These issues are proportionality, equity, social debt and truth in sentencing. Proportionality is a standard that deals with the punishment fitting the crime. The equity principle deals with ensuring that punishment for one crime is the same as punishment for a similar crime. Social debt is the next sentencing principle. With social debt, the judge reviews past behavior or criminal records in order to impose a fair sentence. Finally, the truth in sentencing ensures that inmates are not released from prison without serving the majority of his or her sentence. In other words, credit for good behavior or educational programs would not allow the inmate to be released if he or she only served a small portion of the sentence (Schmalleger & Smykla, 2011).