If Congress does not pass meaningful criminal justice reform in 2016, we will know that the institution is irredeemably broken. Of course, many people have already reached that conclusion. In a recent Rasmussen poll, just nine percent of likely U.S. voters said Congress is doing a “good” or “excellent” job, while 59 percent say it’s doing a “poor” job. For those who still believe Congress can work, the issue of criminal sentencing and prison reform might be the last, best hope.
The consensus that has emerged on mandatory minimum sentencing and prison reform is both wide and deep. Interest groups and individuals from across the political spectrum, including Koch Industries, the ACLU, the American Conservative Union, #Cut50’s Van Jones, and Americans for Tax Reform’s Grover Norquist, all agree on the need to reform mandatory minimum sentencing laws. In a recent Public Opinion Strategies poll, 77 percent of respondents said they favored repealing mandatory minimum prisons sentences for nonviolent drug offenders.
The overwhelming agreement among experts, advocates, and the public has made it easier for politicians of both parties to come together. Indeed, it would be difficult to find another issue on which so many Republican leaders agree as strongly with President Obama. To prove my point, I have put together a short quiz. Below are several expressions of support for criminal sentencing reform. See if you can figure out who said each one.
- “Harsh mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug crimes have contributed to prison overpopulation and are both unfair and ineffective relative to the public expense and human cost of years-long incarceration.”
Who said it?
____ President Barack Obama
____ Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX)
- “I don’t like mandatory minimums, because they don’t take into consideration individual circumstances. … [W]e can’t afford to be throwing away so many people to prison.”
Who said it?
____ President Barack Obama
____ Dr. Ben Carson
- “We are wasting human lives. I am deeply concerned about the rate at which African-American males enter the prison system. As many African-American males have served in prison as have all whites both male and female, despite the obvious significant population disparities between whites and blacks.”
Who said it?
____ President Barack Obama
____ Former Governor Mike Huckabee (R-AR)
- “The criminal justice system needs a lot of reform. Let’s start with the fact that we have the highest incarceration rates in the world. Let’s also remember that over two-thirds of the people who are incarcerated today are incarcerated for non-violent crimes.”
Who said it?
____ President Barack Obama
____ Former HP CEO Carly Fiorina
- “Requiring mandatory treatment instead of prison for nonviolent drug addicts is only one step – but an important one. Treatment is the path to saving lives.”
Who said it?
____ President Barack Obama
____ Governor Chris Christie (R-NJ)
- “Our country’s mandatory minimum laws reflect a Washington-knows-best, one-size-fits-all approach, which undermines the Constitutional Separation of Powers, violates our bedrock principle that people should be treated as individuals, and costs the taxpayers money without making them any safer.”
Who said it?
____ President Barack Obama
____ Senator Rand Paul (R-KY)
- “Rigid and excessive mandatory sentences for low-level drug offenders… may add to an already over-crowded prison system without appreciably enhancing public safety.”
Who said it?
____ President Barack Obama
____ House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI)
If you chose the Republican option for every question above, congratulate yourself for earning a perfect score. But if you chose President Obama for any of these answers, you shouldn’t feel so bad, for President Obama has said something similar in every case.
Committees in the House and Senate have now passed legislation to make modest changes to our nation’s sentencing laws. I would prefer that these bills be expanded even further to address the serious moral, economic, and societal harms caused by federal mandatory minimums. Senator Ted Cruz, for example, has cosponsored a more robust bill that would reduce all federal drug mandatory minimum sentences so that we can focus limited law enforcement resources on more serious offenders. Over the past decades, states that have repealed or reformed their mandatory minimum sentencing laws have been able to achieve less crime while reducing their prison population and costs.
Congress should pass bold sentencing reform. If it can’t manage that, it can’t do anything.
Kevin Ring is the director of strategic initiatives for Families Against Mandatory Minimums. He previously served as the executive director of the House Republican Study Committee and as a counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee for then-Senator John Ashcroft.