Racialized oppression and dehumanization is woven into the very fabric of our nation — the effects of which can be seen in the lawful lynching of black and brown people by the police, and the mass incarceration of black and brown lives in the prison industrial complex,
Every first year law student learns that sentencing has four goals: retribution, incapicitation, deterrence, and rehabilitation.
Whilst long prison sentences will always be right for those who commit the most serious crimes, particularly of a violent or sexual nature, the fact is that the vast majority of all offenders will at some point be released.
As freedom advances, the severity of the penal law decreases
I don't know, it may be that poor people are the only ones who commit crimes, but I do know that they are the only ones who serve prison sentences.
The federal sentencing guidelines should be revised downward. By contrast to the guidelines, I can accept neither the necessity nor the wisdom of federal mandatory minimum sentences. In too many cases, mandatory minimum sentences are unwise and unjust.
Throughout the 1970s, '80s and '90s, federal mandatory minimum laws were implemented that forced judges to deliver sentences far lengthier than they would have if allowed to use their own discretion. The result has been decades of damage, particularly to young people.
You can at least let sick people have marijuana because it's helpful. But the compassionate conservatives say, well we can't do this, we're going to put people who are sick and dying with cancer and are being helped with marijuana if they have multiple sclerosis - the federal government is going in there and overriding state laws and putting people like that in prison.
What mostly prevents black people from voting is that drug laws send them to prison, and then they can't vote.
America has the longest prison sentences in the West, yet the only condition long sentences demonstrably cure is heterosexuality.
Disparities in sentencing often resulted from unconscious biases of judges,
On average, drug prisoners spend more time in federal prison than rapists, who often get out on early release because of the overcrowding in prison caused by the Drug War.
I don't believe we should allow thousands of violent felons to be released early from prison, nor do I believe we should reduce sentences for violent offenders in the future.
"On what motivated Colorado voters: "Let's face it, the War on Drugs was a disaster. It may be well intentioned ... but it sent millions of kids to prison, gave them felonies often times when they had no violent crimes ... I was against this, but I can see why so many people supported it."
I will build the wall and I will impose tough mandatory minimum - remember this - tough mandatory minimum prison sentences for deported illegal immigrants who try to reenter the country. They keep coming back and back and back.
Boys need fathers, and you can't do that in jail.
Abortion opponents know full well that the public would not abide putting women in prison en masse. Politically, it's more palatable to portray them as irrational, ignorant, and childlike, perhaps even temporarily insane.
Something's going to happen that's going to make us all pay attention at the type of sentences some people are serving and the conditions in which they are served.
Because prison sentences in America tend to be long, de-incarceration lags falling crime rates by a fair amount, but eventually it does catch up.
With Pussy Riot - this was a prank! It was a brilliant, artistically gifted prank. But they didn't expect to go to prison! They were college girls who became political prisoners for two years. That makes them very similar to the people who were "just going to a protest one day" and got arrested. They had no idea they were risking the rest of their lives. Because you're never the same after you've spent two years in a gulag.
