The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with 2.2 million people currently incarcerated in jails or prisons. The number continues to rise even as crime decreases.
During the “War on Drugs” era, sentencing policies were introduced that resulted in more people being incarcerated and for longer periods of time. Also, during this period, those incarcerated for drug offenses skyrocketed. Harsh penalties, like the mandatory minimum sentencing laws, and “truth in sentencing” policies, which abandoned parole in the federal system, have keep people in prison with long sentences, contributing to mass incarceration.
Furthermore, mass incarceration does not affect all communities equally, as evidenced right here in Nashville. Our very own zip code 37208, which encompasses the North Nashville area, has the highest incarceration rate in the United States. Today, while people of color make up 37 percent of the U.S. population, the same demographic represents 67 percent of the prison population. Overall, African Americans are more likely to be stopped, arrested, convicted and receive stiff sentences, compared to their white counterparts.
Being a former public defender as well as someone who was also formerly incarcerated, I have extensive criminal justice knowledge and I know how the system works. Using this firsthand experience, I will work to dismantle the criminal justice system by fighting to end mass incarceration, repeal mandatory minimum sentences, remove barriers to successful re-entry and any other policy or procedure that disproportionally affects the black, brown and low-income communities.
Repealing Mandatory Minimum Sentencing Laws
Mandatory minimums have been in place since the 1960s. After the 1984 Sentencing Reform Act, which added significant mandatory minimums for many federal crimes and abolished federal parole, the use of mandatory minimums grew. They became a standard response to the crack epidemic and crime spikes. What started as an attempt to impose uniformity became too restrictive, creating new disparities and injustices in the process.
Mandatory minimum sentencing laws require judges to give all offenders convicted of a certain crime the same punishment. Judges are not allowed to consider any special facts or unique circumstances, when sentencing an individual. The adoption of mandatory minimums has not led to a fairer, more just system. In fact, it’s had the opposite effect.
By tying judges’ hands, mandatory minimums have effectively taken away power from judges and given it to prosecutors who in turn, threaten to charge defendants with crimes that “trigger” a mandatory minimum. Facing a significant long sentence from which there’s no other escape, defendants often feel coerced into pleading guilty to crimes they may not have committed. Mandatory minimum sentences result in lengthy, excessive time, directly contributing to mass incarceration.
Barriers to Successful Re-entry
More than 600,000 men and women are released from federal and state prisons each year. A criminal conviction brings with it a host of collateral consequences. In addition to affecting employment, these individuals may also be denied housing, education, government benefits and the right to vote.
Felony disenfranchisement policies have a disproportionate effect on Black communities. African Americans of voting age are more than four times as likely to lose their voting rights than the rest of the adult population. In Tennessee alone, more than one in five Black adults are disenfranchised. In total, 2.2 million Black citizens are banned from voting. Denying the right to vote to an entire class of citizens is deeply problematic to our democratic society and is counterproductive to effective re-entry.
The current policies and procedures in place are ineffective. But before we can talk about steps for successful re-entry, we must first make sure that success is actually an option for those who have been formally incarcerated. We must ensure policies and procedures that are adopted and embraced represent a “Second Chance Culture”, one that sees the value in people, doesn’t define them by their past and envisions a prolonged commitment to the successful reintegration of people impacted by incarceration.
