WASHINGTON, DC – A new policy report highlights various systemic injustices in the U.S. criminal legal system, and urges lawmakers to adopt significant sentencing and prison reforms, according to the Sentencing Project’s “Toolkit for Fighting Mass Incarceration in the 119th Congress.”
The report underscores the racial disparities, excessive sentencing policies, and the urgent need for “Second Look” legislation to address the consequences of mass incarceration.
The report also identifies extreme sentencing as a primary driver of the nation’s high incarceration rates.
It comments, “Many individuals remain in federal prisons decades longer than is necessary to protect communities or hold them accountable—needlessly fracturing families, denying them a chance to contribute to the community, and wasting scarce correctional resources.”
The Sentencing Project calls on Congress to pass the Second Look Act, which would allow individuals who have served at least 10 years in federal prison to petition for a sentence reduction.
The toolkit also critiques mandatory minimum sentencing laws, charging, “The harsh mandatory minimums for crack cocaine, more prevalent in Black communities, contributed to rising incarceration rates and racial disparities in the federal criminal legal system.”
The report supports the passage of the EQUAL Act, which aims to eliminate sentencing disparities between crack and powder cocaine offenses—an issue that has historically led to harsher penalties for Black defendants.
Another major focus of the report is the lack of voting rights for justice-impacted individuals.
“As a result of these outdated policies, four million Americans with a felony conviction were disenfranchised as of 2024, disproportionately impacting Black and Latinx Americans,” the report notes.
The Inclusive Democracy Act, which the organization endorses, seeks to restore federal voting rights to all incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals, challenging laws that “have their roots in Jim Crow-era policies.”
The Sentencing Project also points to the plight of elderly and medically vulnerable individuals in prison.
“The Safer Detention Act would expand opportunities for early release from prison for elderly people who pose no threat to public safety,” the report states, and highlights the case of incarcerated individuals who were convicted before 1987 and remain excluded from compassionate release policies.
The report claims legislative inaction on these issues perpetuates racial and economic injustices, maintaining, “Long sentences impede public investments in effective crime prevention, substance use treatment, and other rehabilitative efforts that produce healthier and safer communities.”
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