Despite passage of the National Criminal Justice Commission Act in July by the U.S. House of Representatives, enactment this year is uncertain. Only a few weeks remain in the legislative calendar and the Senate must prioritize the bill for a vote on the floor.

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.

Send your Senators a letter in support of the Commission.

Legislation pending in Congress would eliminate the lifetime bans on food stamps and financial assistance for people convicted of felony drug offenses. Ask your representative to support this important reentry legislation.

This week the California Assembly is likely to vote on SB 399, a bill that would provide review and the possibility of parole for juveniles serving sentences of life without the possibility of parole.

We need your help. Please call your Assembly Member today and ask them to support SB 399. A script is provided below. If you don't know who your representative is, click here to find out.

The National Criminal Justice Commission Act, currently pending in the U.S. Senate, would create an independent body of experts to study and advance programs and policies that promote public safety, while overhauling those practices that are found to be fundamentally flawed. Please contact your Senators to secure passage of the National Criminal Justice Commission Act this year.

In order to reauthorize the JJDPA this year, we need your help to encourage the U.S. Senate to pass S. 678, the Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention Act reauthorization legislation, through the full Senate.

In March, after more than a decade of inaction, Congress convened expert witnesses on voting rights, reentry and elections administration at a hearing of the Democracy Restorations Act, a bill to restore federal voting rights to people no longer incarcerated for a felony conviction. A broad coalition is advocating for this legislation but we need your help to secure additional support on Capitol Hill. Please contact your representatives in Congress and ask them to cosponsor the Democracy Restoration Act today.

In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Roper v. Simmons that the death penalty is unconstitutional for individuals sentenced for crimes committed as juveniles because a child's mind is not as developed as an adult. However, children can still be sentenced to life sentences and in some states, including Pennsylvania, life means life -- there is no parole eligibility. Pennsylvania holds more juvenile lifers than anywhere else in the world and may get one more – a 12-year-old. The Commonwealth is one of 13 states that can apply this type of sentence with no minimum age requirement.

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?

Minority populations comprise two-thirds of persons convicted of offenses in federal courts and nearly three-quarters of federal prisoners are either black or Hispanic. While there is a strong perception that there exists elements within the criminal justice system that exacerbates this disparity, the federal government has yet to study the truth of such accusations. Congress is considering legislation which would fund 10 pilot programs to examine racial and ethnic disparity and remedy any biases that exist in the administration of federal criminal justice.

The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Reauthorization Act of 2009 (S.678) was introduced today by Senators Leahy (D-VT), Kohl (D-WI), Specter (R-PA), and Durbin (D-IL). This bill strengthens the JJDPA in several important ways, including providing concrete guidance and support to states in their work toward reducing minority overrepresentation in the juvenile justice system. This legislation would also support evidence-based delinquency prevention and intervention strategies, mental health and drug treatment, and reentry services. The legislation also urges states to make improvements to juvenile justice systems, and provides common sense guidelines, procedural protections and restrictions on the pretrial detention of juveniles in adult jails and the detention of children who commit status offenses like truancy.

The Sentencing Project today endorsed H.R. 265, the Drug Sentencing Reform and Cocaine Kingpin Trafficking Act of 2009, introduced by Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee. The bill would eliminate the cocaine sentencing disparity and limit the harsh federal mandatory minimums for low-level crack cocaine offenses. “The Sentencing Project believes that unequal sentencing for crack and powder cocaine is unjustifiable and not supported by research,” says the letter addressed to Representative Jackson Lee. The Sentencing Project is a leader in the Crack the Disparity Coalition and will work vigorously for legislative reform in 2009.