Harsh Sentencing, Overstuffed Prisons—It’s Time for Reform: Nonviolent Offenders Make Up 90% of the Federal Prison Population
Too many people are in prison who should not be there. How many? Most of them! It is not that they are innocent of the offenses that put them there. It is that they are in prison mainly because we have criminalized vast areas for nonviolent offenders and compounded that with a distorted sentencing system. Criminal justice cries out for reform. Congress and the Justice Department have begun to listen.
Since 1980 the U.S. federal prison population has grown by about 800% (to 216,787 this week, according to the Bureau of Prisons),…
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“Harsh Sentencing, Overstuffed Prisons—It’s Time for Reform: Nonviolent Offenders Make Up 90% of the Federal Prison Population”
By Morimer Zuckerman
Wall Street Journal, 2 May 2014