Is It Time to Change Sentencing Rules?

Published in

Homeland Security

4 min readFeb 13, 2016

Jeff Davis

There seems to be a great deal of discussion lately about State and Federal correction systems. In particular, how the past policies of mandatory sentencing have led to overcrowding in our jails and prisons. Money was spent on facilities meant for locking offenders up and few resources were directed towards rehabilitating offenders. As a society, we were comfortable locking criminals up as a solution to fight crime.

Laws and sentencing guidelines in many states remained unchanged for decades. For example, in California for the last three decades it was considered a felony crime to steal an item worth more than $400. A felony meant the possibility of time in a state prison versus in a local county jail. As the decades passed and inflation crept up, it was possible to be charged with a felony for taking an unsecured bicycle or stealing an avocado from someone’s orchard. Only last year did California make a sweeping effort to align the degree of criminal behavior with the acts committed and while it’s a step in the right direction, it is still quite possible to be charged with a felony for stealing a bicycle if it is valued over $900.

Drug offenses are another example of adjusting to both societal evolution and the economics of locking up criminals. Sweeping changes in California drug laws have reduced the likelihood of serving jail or prison time for mere possession charges. Alternatives to custody, such as drug courts and unsupervised probation, help keep state prison populations down — although in California most prisons are still well above their maximum capacity. Drug courts and probation occur at local levels and allow the State to fund alternatives to increasing prison populations thereby keeping non-violent drug offenders under local authority.

Some feel the time is right to make changes at a larger level and reshape our corrections system by changing sentencing rules much the way we did when we voted in the three strikes rule. This amounts to a full swing of the pendulum and will require legislation to accomplish. The Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2015 (S. 2123) Bill outlined many changes to current mandatory sentencing rules in an obvious effort to reduce jail overcrowding. The Bill offered alternative sentences such as reducing the 15 year mandatory sentence of those convicted for gun possession offenses to 10 years. The 25 year mandatory sentence for possession of a gun during drug trafficking or crimes of violence would be reduced to 15 years. This has all the appearance of simple sentencing sell off in an effort to reduce prison populations.

All of this leads to the issue of rehabilitation in our correction systems and begs the question; If we are failing to rehabilitate the current prison population, how are we planning to break the cycle with future inmates? By letting them out early?

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Is It Time to Change Sentencing Rules?

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