SENTENCING POLICY | Justice Strategies

Many states have responded to budgetary pressures and shifts in public opinion by reconsidering tough-on-crime policies, while others struggle to cope with crowding and mounting corrections costs. Justice Strategies has tracked national and state-level sentencing and correctional policy trends; authored a series of major reports on relevant policy issues; and helped policymakers and advocates to develop proposals designed to reduce costs and improve outcomes.

Positive Trends and Best Practices in Criminal Justice Reform: A National Overview

This report reviews more than a decade of drug sentencing reform efforts in the states of Washington, Kansas, Michigan and New York. The positive impact of reducing reliance on incarceration in these states shows the way towards increasing opportunities for effective drug treatment, and safer, healthier communities. The report also includes a brief example of how Kansas produced a net savings to taxpayers of $7.5 million, from FY 2004 to FY2008, through reductions in prison population levels. In addition, Positive Trends surveys strategies from Massachusetts, Arizona and Wisconsin for reducing racial disparity in the criminal justice system.

Washington Post on Gangs and Public Safety

When it comes to fighting gangs, there's the New York City approach, and there's the Los Angeles approach, according to the Justice Policy Institute. And one statistic dramatizes the difference:

Two years ago, Los Angeles police reported 11,402 gang-related crimes; New York police, 520.

Star.com: U.S. gang crackdowns called a 'tragic failure'

More police, more prisons and more punitive measures aren't the answer to reducing gang activity, concludes a new U.S. study that experts here say underscores the need for Canada to reject that approach in favour of investing in jobs, schools and programs for disenfranchised youth.

Gang Wars: The Failure of Enforcement Tactics and the Need for Effective Public Safety Strategies

Youth crime in the United States remains near the lowest levels seen in the past three decades, yet public concern and media coverage of gang activity has skyrocketed since 2000. Fear has spread from neighborhoods with longstanding gang problems to communities with historically low levels of crime, and some policy makers have declared the arrival of a national gang “crisis.” Yet many questions remain unanswered.

Youth crime in the United States remains near the lowest levels seen in the past three decades, yet public concern and media coverage of gang activity has skyrocketed since 2000.

NY Times: The Wrong Approach to Gangs

No city has failed to control its street gangs more spectacularly than Los Angeles. The region has six times as many gangs and double the number of gang members as a quarter-century ago, even after spending countless billions on the problem. But unless Congress changes course quickly, the policies that seem to have made the gang problem worse in Los Angeles could become enshrined as national doctrine in a so-called gang control bill making its way through both the House and Senate.

Progress and Challenges: An analysis of drug treatment and imprisonment in Maryland

Maryland is making slow progress toward the goal of providing "treatment, not incarceration" to nonviolent substance abusers. The number of criminal justice-referred drug treatment admissions grew by 28 percent between 2000 and 2004, while drug imprisonment dropped by seven percent.

Supporters Urge Change to Laws on Drug-free School Zones (CT)

(The Stamford Advocate — Tobin A. Coleman — March 25, 2006)

HARTFORD -- Calling current law racist, activists yesterday pushed for a bill that would shrink the size of zones around schools, day-care centers and public housing that carry stiffer penalties for drug offenses.

The bill would reduce the current 1,500 foot "drug free" radius around those facilities to 200 feet, within which additional mandatory three-year sentences are tacked on to drug offenses, including possession, sale and intent to sell drugs.

Study Concludes Drug-free Zones Not Protecting Children (NJ)

(The Press of Atlantic City — Lynda Cohen — March 24, 2006)

Drug-free zones not only don't protect children, but instead have put a disproportionate number of minorities in jail, according to experts who have been studying the policy.

A national study — spawned by a New Jersey commission's findings — was released Thursday. In it, the Justice Policy Institute found that the zones are too large and therefore do not deter drug sales within school zones and other protected areas.

Disparity by Design: How drug-free zone laws impact racial disparity – and fail to protect youth

A new report coauthored by Justice Strategies analysts Judy Greene and Kevin Pranis, and Jason Ziedenberg of The Justice Policy Institute, finds that drug-free zone laws have no deterrent effect on drug sales near schools but instead fuel racial disparity in imprisonment.

New Jersey drug-free zone laws produce "devastating" disparity, no deterrence

New Jersey's drug-free zone laws have no deterrent effect on drug sales near schools but instead fuel racial disparity in imprisonment according to New Jersey's Commission to Review Criminal Sentencing and a new report coauthored by policy analysts with Justice Strategies and Justice Policy Institute. Since the state's "school-zone" law took effect, the proportion of blacks admitted to prison for drug convictions has risen four times faster than the proportion of whites.

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