Today, twenty years after the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement
Act—commonly referred to as the Crime Bill—established a federal three
strikes law and unleashed a cascade of state-level truth-in-sentencing
reforms, a seismic shift away from tough-on-crime policies is well
underway. In a new policy report, Playbook for Change? States Reconsider Mandatory Sentences, Vera’s
Center on Sentencing and Corrections finds that more than half of all
states have taken steps to roll back mandatory sentences since 2000,
with 32 bills passed in just the last five years. Most of this
legislative activity has focused on adjusting penalties for nonviolent
drug offenses by taking one or a combination of three approaches:
expanding judicial discretion by creating so-called “safety valve”
provisions, limiting automatic sentence enhancements, or repealing or
revising mandatory minimum sentences.
Read on....
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