Counting Down: Paths to a 20-Year Maximum Prison Sentence

By Liz Komar, Ashley Nellis; and Kristen M. Budd 

As the United States marks 50 years of mass incarceration, dramatic change is necessary to ensure another 50 do not follow. In no small part due to long sentences, the United States has one of the world’s highest incarceration rates, with nearly two million people in prisons and jails. The destabilizing force of mass incarceration deepens social and economic inequity – families lose not only a loved one, but income and childcare. By age 14, one in 14 children in the United States experience a parent leaving for jail or prison.3 Individuals returning to the community face profound barriers to employment and housing. Meantime the communities most impacted by crime – poor communities and communities of color – disproportionately bear the burden of incarceration’s impacts. Long sentences affect young Black men disproportionately compared to every other race and age group. Twice as many Black children as white children have experienced parental incarceration.6 Mass incarceration entrenches cycles of harm, trauma, and disinvestment and consumes funds that might support investment in interventions that empower communities and create lasting safety. In the United States, over half of people in prison are serving a decade or longer and one in seven incarcerated people are serving a life sentence.8 To end mass incarceration, the United States must dramatically shorten sentences. Capping sentences for the most serious offenses at 20 years and shifting sentences for all other offenses proportionately downward, including by decriminalizing some acts, is a vital decarceration strategy to arrive at a system that values human dignity and prioritizes racial equity. This report begins by examining the evidence in support of capping sentences at 20 years. Countries such as Germany and Norway illustrate that sentences can be far shorter without sacrificing public safety. A wealth of criminological evidence makes clear that unduly long sentences are unnecessary: people age out of crime, and even the general threat of long term imprisonment is an ineffective deterrent. m Prison Sentence

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2023. 21p