Sentencing Reform Research Paper

Sentencing disparity within the American Judicial system is a problem that exists across the nation. According to Merriam Webster’s dictionary, disparity means the markedly distinct in quality or character. Many times, disparity is used in conjunction with discrimination as if the two words mean the same, but they do not. Disparity will include a difference in treatment or outcome but is not based on an opinion, bias or prejudice.

For example, "we are not moving nearly fast enough to reduce incarceration. Over 2 million Americans live caged behind bars, a 550 percent increase in the last 40 years." Thus, this shows that due to us still following the old system to many people are in jail for crimes that don’t deserve that crime. Another example is shown in article 2, line 2 "One in 35 American adults is under

The initial thinking behind the creation of minimum mandatory sentences was created by congress to aim in the capture and imprisonment of high level drug traffickers, and deter others from entering into drug trafficking or using illegal substances, which would create a safer society. However, the nation prison has been expanded with low level street drug dealers, and the accessibility to illegal drugs is more obtainable then before the enactment of the mandatory sentencing act. In fact, the number of drug offenders in federal prisons has increased 21 times since 1980. Contrary to what congress has believed in the past about the dangers of crack cocaine compared to that in powder form has been proven to be untrue, but little has been done to reduce the number of prisons affected by that belief.

Additionally, the impact of reforming incarceration policies should not be overstated, for the impact might not be on the incarceration rate of drug offenders but in the drug-related arrests. Also, reforming drug and sentencing policies will promote an engaging cohesion within the community that will result a healthy mitigating society, for Robert D Crutchfield and Gregory A. Weeks author of "The Effects Of Mass Incarceration On Communities Of Color. " quotes “When residential areas, and even commercial districts, are cohesive and individuals are engaged with each other, people can participate in the kinds of social life that make crime less likely”. In continuation, institutions increases poverty within those closely connected to convicted offender, which increases poverty, for according to Michael Mitchell and Michael Leachman authors of “Changing priorities: state criminal justice reforms and investments in education.”

The rising population in prisons became a major concern. In 2010, a prison reform expert explained that putting drug addicts to incarceration cost too much estimating eighty billion of dollars a year (Childress, 2014). Thus, congress's proposal is to shorten the sentencing of nonviolent offender. Some report explained that "there are many people serving time for violent offenses who haven’t actually committed violent acts and might be good candidates for reduced sentences." (Neyfakh, 2015).

The purpose of the criminal justice system is to deliver justices to everyone that commits a crime, to punish the guilty and help them not to re-offend again, also while protecting the innocent citizen (Garside, 2008). We can view justice in four different type of ways: retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation. We use retribution to punish the offenders. With this theory, they believe that if you punish the offender they will behave better and not re-commit the crime again.

Sentencing Sentencing occurs after a defendant has been convicted of a crime. During the sentencing process, the court issues a punishment that involves a fine, imprisonment, capital punishment, or some other penalty. In some states, juries may be entitled to determine a sentence. However, sentencing in most states and federal courts are issued by a judge. To fully understand the sentencing phase of criminal court proceedings, it is important to examine how sentencing affects the state and federal prison systems, learn the meanings of determinate and indeterminate sentencing, and understand the impact Proposition 57 has had on sentencing in California.

There are six current trends in prison sentencing. These tends play a big role when it comes down to offenders being sentenced to prison and even after they may be released. Prisons are using these current trends to help cut down prison populations and cost. These trends include adjusting sentences, improving community supervision, responding to probation and parole violations, addressing offender needs, and attention to release and reentry. Adjusting sentences lets the state legislatures reexamine who goes to prison and for how long .with a focus on reserving space for more threatening offenders.

With the economy in the turmoil that it is in America cannot continue to support these sentencing guidelines. The Mandatory Article Sentencing declares that the laws are becoming a huge drain on the Justice Bureau’s budget, and in 2012 the United States had far beyond more people incarcerated than any other country. Most of these prisoners are low-level drug offenders sentenced under mandatory sentencing guidelines with a cost draining on American taxpayers $6.8 billion a year, as of 2012. These costs do not seem to have a ceiling and continue eating up about twenty-five percent of the federal justice system’s yearly budget.

Explain the goals of sentencing. Identify several criteria used in determining the appropriate sentence. What constitutional rights exist during sentencing? While a trail jury can determine innocence or guilt Judges decide on the punishments for a specific crime. The Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, made applicable to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment, provides that "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."

According to the book Corrections The Essentials by Mary K. Stohr and Anthony Walsh, a sentencing disparity occurs when there is a wide variation in sentences received by different offender that may be legitimate or discriminatory. A disparity is legitimate if it is based on crime seriousness and/ or prior record. If it is not then it is considered discriminatory. Sentencing guidelines can help attempts to address these disparities by determining how long a person should go to jail for each crime they committed.

In this paper, I will be explaining what the three strikes law is and its purpose. I will also be explaining why the three strikes law is controversial by defining the defending arguments from the pros and cons sides. I will also use relevant facts and statistics to demonstrate the response from the public in regards to the three strikes law. Lastly I will argue, why we should eliminate the use of the three strikes law due to its injustice to not only the criminals, but also to those of us who are innocent of crimes. The three strikes law was first passed in 1993 by Washington State to keep repeated criminals off the streets along with deterring crime (Clark et al, 1997).

This issue led to what is now resulting in mass incarceration. Mass incarceration has been shown to affect mostly poor and minorities. Individuals living in poverty are not afforded the same royalties as those who are not in poverty. They are more willing to commit crimes because of their lack of fortune. The crime rate is more prone to be in urban communities, which hold a significant number of minorities.

For instance, tackling issues such as health care and education, which provide severe inequality and adversity, would create an equal and safer society that would thus reject any need for criminal behavior, Davis herself suggests, “Rather, positing decarceration as our overarching strategy, we would try to envision a continuum of alternatives to imprisonment-demilitarization of schools, revitalization of education at all levels, a health system that provides free physical and mental care to all…” (Davis 107). It is clear that prisons and

There’s always something to fix in society because society is a reflection of us, and we are not perfect. Recently, there’s been many issues that have caught the attention of people living all across the world. Things such as police brutality, sexual assualt in the workplace, and immigration law, just to name a few, but there’s also been an underlying issue that people are becoming more informedinormed about, and that I believe matters - prison reform. Prison reform matters because in many instances, prisoners are treated inhumanely when they are locked up, and aren’t treated as humans when they have served their time. I believe we can bring about change in the prison system by changing the way we punish people who do commit crimes and focusing more on actual rehabilitation.