“The House I Live In” won top documentary film at the Sundance Film Festival for its look at the $1 trillion failed “war on drugs” that decimated urban communities and led to the disproportionate imprisonment of African American men.

Kentucky: Editorial: Kentucky should reform felony disenfranchisement laws

Minnesota: Task force investigating changes to voting rights laws

Virginia: Governor McDonnell and rights restoration

National: National Reentry Resource Center provides information on voting restoration

National: Law journal analyzes de facto permanent disenfranchisement

National: Essay examines race and partisanship in disenfranchisement

The Sentencing Project's new report, State of Sentencing 2011: Developments in Policy and Pract highlights 55 reforms in 29 states and documents a growing trend to reform sentencing policies and scale back the use of imprisonment without compromising public safety and provides an overview of recent policy reforms in the areas of sentencing, probation and parole, collateral consequences, and juvenile justice.

Featured: Spiral of punishment and harassment

Collateral Consequences: Intergenerational transfer of inequality

Policing: Connecticut police officers face charges

Policy: Bill to address disparity in Vermont’s criminal justice system

Upcoming: Lynching and contemporary capital litigation

Gov. Bob McDonnell has restored voting rights to a number of formerly incarcerated people and simplified the restoration process, but more should be done.

This week The Sentencing Project joined with partner organizations to submit a friend-of-the-court brief to the Supreme Court on behalf of two defendants challenging their excessive sentences for crack cocaine offenses. In Hill v. United States and Dorsey v. United States, both petitioners were sentenced in federal court for offenses involving crack cocaine after passage of the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 (FSA) but were subject to the old 100- to-1 sentencing structure. The petitioners had committed their offenses before the reformed sentencing law was enacted.

The Sentencing Project joins other amici in voicing our support for eliminating life without parole sentences for young people. The U.S. stands alone worldwide in the imposition of juvenile life sentences with no option for parole.  The United States Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on March 20, 2012 in Miller v. Alabama and Jackson v. Hobbs.

By rethinking its state sentencing policies, the state of Florida can avoid expanding private prison capacity and cut spending by enacting sentencing reforms that maintain public safety at the same time.

Thirty years ago, private prisons were nearly nonexistent. Today, the population incarcerated in fully privatized prisons has soared. States and the federal government increasingly look to private companies to manage their prison populations as a way to cut costs.