State Campaigns to End Extreme Sentences

Oklahoma has long been a national leader in the incarceration of women and has the highest rates of domestic violence in the country. The Sentencing Project has collaborated with local experts and justice-impacted persons to pass a law that addresses these failures of justice: the Oklahoma Survivors’ Justice Act. This is the first such law in Oklahoma, and one of few in the nation, that caps sentences at 30 years and allows for resentencing for violent offenses if abuse was a significant contributing factor in the underlying offense. The Sentencing Project will work to implement this landmark legislation as a first step in curbing extreme sentencing in one the nation’s most conservative states.

Until 2021 Rhode Island mandated that anyone serving life without the possibility of parole was civilly dead, meaning they had no right to legal recourse, marriage, etc. This excessively cruel law is one of the many remnants of Rhode Island’s reliance on the use of extreme sentences, which disproportionately impact communities of color. For the last three years, The Sentencing Project has been working with a broad coalition of over 84 organizations, directly impacted families, and incarcerated persons to address the inhumanity of the state’s sentencing policies  by implementing Second Look Legislation. While our proposed bill did not pass in its first year, we will return with renewed fervor in 2025.

The District’s ambitious approach to sentencing reform, including one of the strongest second look laws in the country, has repeatedly placed it in Congress’s crosshairs. The Sentencing Project advocates for the District’s autonomy to pursue evidence-based sentencing reform laws and policies. The Sentencing Project also urges the DC Council to build on the District’s sentencing reform successes, by expanding eligibility for second looks and abolishing mandatory minimum sentences.

Massacushetts has a strong movement to address the core issues that drive mass incarceration such as repealing life without the possibility of parole, advancing second look, and curbing extreme and racially disparate sentencing such as through the state’s felony murder law. The Sentencing Project is playing a key role in educating the legislature about the necessity of these reforms and will be joining allies to fight for their passage.

Louisiana is the most prolific incarcerator in the country, and the world. It is known for its long and dark history of slavery, prejudice, and incarceration. One in five people in Louisiana’s prisons are serving a sentence of 50 years or more, or life. Today, politicians are pushing for a return to racially-biased policies and extreme punishments that research shows are not effective crime deterrents, but we continue to fight to push reform and sustain efforts to bring balance to the second degree and felony murder statutes. The arch of history is long in Louisiana, but along with our partners, we bend it toward justice.