End Excessive Sentencing

This chapter explores why comprehensive sentencing reform and a twenty-year maximum sentence are essential to efforts to reverse mass incarceration. The widespread imposition of long and life sentences has contributed significantly to mass incarceration and is an ineffective and inefficient means of protecting public safety. Moreover, the proliferation of harsh sentencing laws has led to a dramatic decline in the share of cases that are adjudicated at trial and a notable increase in the penalty defendants pay for exercising their right to trial. Reliance on excessive sentences is also a costly approach to the problem of violence, one that consumes significant tax dollars that might otherwise be spent on evidence-based crime prevention programs, victim services, and restorative justice alternatives. While a twenty-year maximum sentence would mean a significant change in the United States, such a policy would bring the country into line with human rights norms and the practices of other democratic countries.