Criminal Sentencing Reform
Through its Sentencing Committee, the Constitution Project advocates for federal and state sentencing systems that are just, effective and efficient. We support improvements to sentencing systems like reintroducing judicial discretion to sentencing decisions, improving procedural fairness and due process in the sentencing process, and implementing reasonable alternatives to confinement.
Additionally, criminal defendants should receive sentences proportionate to their crimes and should not be punished more severely than they deserve. To achieve this proportionality, sentencing systems that use guidelines, like the federal sentencing guidelines, must allow judges to exercise discretion to account for differences among offenses and offenders. Therefore, we believe that mandatory minimum sentences, enacted by legislatures to remove discretion from judges, are generally inappropriate because they are inconsistent with a system of sentencing guidelines.
We also recognize that the United States prison population has skyrocketed over the past few decades, even in the face of declining crime rates. State and federal governments spend billions of dollars to incarcerate individuals who pose no continuing threat to public safety. Evidence-based policies can reduce corrections costs while maintaining, and even improving, public safety.
Finally, we are concerned by the explosion of new criminal laws that punish seemingly innocent conduct, even when the offender lacks the intent to break the law. This overcriminalization of conduct by legislatures, combined with unnecessary and counterproductive enforcement of laws by prosecutors, puts innocent citizens at risk. There are more effective and just ways to address the conduct at issue.
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