2016 Trends in State Courts Special Focus on Family Law and Court Communications
Trusted Leadership. Proven Solutions. Better Courts. www.ncsc.org Keynote
Keynote
Recent Sentencing Reform Initiatives to Reduce Recidivism, Promote Fairness, and Control Costs
Roger K. Warren President Emeritus, In 2008, 1 of every 100 adult Americans National Center for State Courts was confined in an American prison or jail, the highest incarceration rate of Faced with increasing crime rates in the mid-1970s, federal any nation in the world and six to nine and state policymakers implemented increasingly punitive and times the incarceration rates of western ineffective criminal-sentencing policies. This article highlights European countries. Thirty-six states recent state and federal sentencing reform initiatives to address and the District of Columbia have higher incarceration rates than the country the consequences and failures of those sentencing policies. with the next highest incarceration rate, Cuba. The U.S. has less than 5 percent of the world population and The History and Consequences almost 25 percent of its prisoners. of Prevailing U.S. Sentencing Policies
Throughout most of the 20th century, American “indeterminate,” where the form and length of penal policy focused on “rehabilitation.” the sentence were not specifically determined The “rehabilitative ideal” referred to using by a judge at the time of sentencing but penal and corrections institutions to restore entrusted to prison and parole authorities an offender to a condition of law-abiding to determine later in light of the offender’s behavior. State and federal sentencing schemes demonstrated degree of rehabilitation while to accomplish that purpose were primarily incarcerated or under supervision.
Recent Sentencing Reform Initiatives to Reduce Recidivism, Promote Fairness, and Control Costs 1 U.S. Incarceration Rate, 1960-2014 All Prisons and Jails per 100,000 Population