In Connecticut persons convicted of possessing drugs within 1,500 feet of an elementary, secondary school or licensed child day care center receive a two-year mandatory minimum sentence. While we should all be concerned about drug-selling activity to children, these laws are overly broad and in many cases apply to offenses where no children are involved. Proposed Bill 6295 would modify the size of these zones from 1,500 to 200 feet, impacting 14.54% of all drug offenses.

Read The Sentencing Project's letter here.

In 2008, the Connecticut Legislature took a step in the right direction when it authorized the request of racial and ethnic impact statements for bills passed successfully out of committee that may impact the state’s correctional population, but these have been requested infrequently. The Sentencing Project encourages members of the relevant committees to request racial and ethnic impact statements during the 2013 Legislative Session.

Read The Sentencing Project's letter here.

Mandatory minimum sentencing laws -- which require automatic prison sentences, regardless of the circumstances of the case -- drive our skyrocketing incarceration rates and result in racial disparities.  Urge your elected representatives in Congress to eliminate “one size fits all" mandatory minimum sentences that allow little consideration for individual characteristics and result in unfair sentences, particularly for people of color. 

In September the U.S. Senate's Committee on Appropriations approved a bill that would eliminate funding for the Second Chance Act, which provides resources to nonprofits, states and local government to aid people reentering communities after incarceration. Instead, the bill would add $300 million to the federal Bureau of Prisons's $6 billion budget to help kick off a prison building campaign for 7 new prisons in 4 years. This policy will continue a cycle of increasing incarceration and racial disparity that is very difficult to undo.

It is important that Congress knows that building more prisons does not solve our crime problems and there are better alternatives to addressing prison overcrowding.  Ask your representatives in Congress to support the Second Chance Act, rather than prison expansion.

ASK YOUR REPRESENTATIVES IN CONGRESS TO SUPPORT REENTRY, NOT MORE PRISONS

Senator Jim Webb has introduced legislation, S. 306 to establish a national commission to study criminal justice issues.

Your Senators need to hear from you if we want a Criminal Justice Commission to address unfairness, excessive sentence length and racial disparity.  Please contact your Senators today and ask them for their support.

There are currently more than 2,500 individuals serving life sentences for crimes committed as a juvenile: 59% had no prior convictions and 26% were convicted because a co-defendant committed murder. These children stand a higher risk of being raped, murdered and assaulted or committing suicide while incarcerated.

No other country in the world sentences juveniles to a life sentence without possibility of parole and in doing so, the U.S. is at odds with three United Nations' resolutions: The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, The Declaration of the Rights of the Child, and The Convention on the Rights of the Child. The U.S. and Somalia are the only two countries that have not ratified this document.

If girls as old as 15 can not be responsible for consensual sex, why can a child of 11 be tried as an adult and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole?

The Ex-offender Improvements in Transition Act (EXIT Act) of 2009 (H.R.3053) was introduced by Representative Andre Carson (D-IN). This bill strengthens the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 by repealing the denial to drug felons of eligibility for benefits under the program of temporary assistance for needy families (TANF).  Many states have not eliminated the federal ban on benefits. Those states that have retained the TANF ban implement counterproductive public policies that fail to address the basic needs, including housing and income assistance, of people with felony drug convictions who seek to reintegrate into their communities. The EXIT Act provides vital help to formerly incarcerated persons attempting to successfully reenter society and avoid further contact with the criminal justice system.

On Tuesday, June 16^th, the DC Council is expected to vote on “emergency” crime bills, including a proposal by Councilman Evans. DC Council should oppose the Evans bill because it will not increase public safety as the proposal:

• Casts a broad and wide net that will sweep many people – including people who have not been involved in a crime – into the criminal justice system;
• Proposes new gun crimes and provisions that are not targeted at reducing gun violence;
• Adds unnecessary new mandatory minimum sentences and makes it easier to detain people pending trial – proposals which will unnecessarily increase incarceration of District residents;
• May brand as gang members law-abiding District residents simply on the basis of guilt by association and permanently restrict who they can talk to or associate with in their neighborhoods through "gang injunctions.”

Before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime Thursday, former federal prosecutor Veronica Coleman-Davis of Memphis, testified that she made a conscious decision that her office would not prosecute "five gram crack cases," the Commercial Appeal reported. Coleman-Davis was one of seven witnesses that testified about the crack cocaine sentencing disparity. During her testimony, she mentioned that for some black youth, "incarceration as a normative right of passage … we not only need to end the disparate sentences, but we also need to ensure some means of prevention, intervention and healing for those affected by incarcerated parents."