MG

Let’s aim at minimum to reduce the incarceration rate to about 150 to 175 per 100,000, which is where it was on the eve of the prison boom and is somewhat comparable to other developed countries. That would mean cutting the rate by about 75 to 80 percent. Some people have begun to talk about cutting it in half over the next 10 years — and this has been dismissed as a radical idea.

We need comprehensive sentencing reform, and not just for drug crimes. We have to look at the hard cases like child pornography. We also need to roll back these very punitive sentences for people who’ve committed some pretty serious crimes — like homicide.

We should abolish life in prison without the possibility of parole. This is a nearly unheard-of sentence in Europe. Everyone serving time should be entitled to a meaningful parole review. We’ve lost the distinction between somebody who’s done something horrible and somebody who is a horrible person.

Public opinion surveys show that Americans in many ways are not more punitive than people in other countries. Public officials and politicians in the United States misread public sentiment on this issue. They’re excessively fearful of public opinion, and they’ve been unwilling to lead public opinion to dismantle the carceral state, not just trim it around the edges.

The mainstream narrative on criminal justice reform today is that since everything is so polarized in Washington and state capitols, the best we can hope for is small-bore legislative fixes aimed at the non, non, nons. Comprehensive sentencing reform is considered a nonstarter.

But it is important to remember that the carceral state was not built by legislation alone. In its formative years, a growing number of prosecutors, police, judges, and corrections officials made a major shift and decided to exert their enormous discretion in a more punitive direction. Now they can choose to do the opposite.

And if you look around today, you will find a handful of maverick prosecutors, judges, police chiefs, and corrections officials who have become disenchanted with the carceral state. They are displaying some rare examples of political courage as they wield their enormous discretion to pursue less punitive policies and practices.