PDF People Age Out of Crime. Prison Sentences Should Reflect That
“There’s no question: Our legal system loves long prison sentences. From 2000 to 2019, the number of people serving sentences of 10 years or longer exploded from 587,000 to 773,000, according to a new report from The Sentencing Project. Those 773,000 people account for more than half of the U.S. prison population.
Extreme sentences have become so commonplace in the U.S. that 10 years can seem like a relatively minor punishment, perhaps woefully inadequate for serious offenses. But 10 years is an enormously long period of time – one in which people can experience profound growth, especially in their younger years.
That’s why we believe incarcerated people should have the opportunity to have their sentence re-evaluated after 10 years. In fact, the American Bar Association just passed a resolution recommending precisely that….”