TIME TO END MINIMUM SENTENCING REQUIREMENTS

The American Bar Association this week delivered a report to
conservative Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy strongly
criticizing the growing trend of mandatory minimum criminal sentencing
requirements. We couldn't agree more. Mandatory minimum sentencing -
politically popular as it is - is an experiment that has been going on
in this country for more than a decade - and it has failed miserably.

Our prisons are bursting at the seams to the point the term
"overcrowded" has become a gross understatement at best. Since
sentencing guidelines first came into play in the 1980s, state and
federal prison costs have risen more than 400 percent - with only the
most imperceptible effect on crime rates across the United States.

These huge expenditures - topping $49 billion in 1999 - come at a time
when other public services are on bread-and-water budgets, having to
scramble just to stay afloat.

Kennedy, after receiving the report from the Bar Association, noted
many schools can't afford athletic or arts programs anymore.

"Society ought to ask itself how it's allocating its resources," he said.

What's almost worse, such guidelines - much like the zero-tolerance
policies that have hamstrung school administrators everywhere - remove
the decision making process from the very people most qualified to
handle it - judges.

Kennedy, who asked the Bar Association to do the study, agrees with
its findings, saying, "the phrase 'tough on crime' should not be a
substitute for moral reflection."

Mandatory sentencing is putting relatively minor criminals behind bars
for long periods, which is not only unfair, it has, as we have seen
over and over again in Alabama, forced parole boards to release more
violent and habitual offenders early, sometimes after only a few
months in jail.

The report states, and again we strongly agree, long prison sentences
should be reserved for the criminals who are the greatest threat to
society.

The Daily Home follows the ABA's urging to government officials,
including President Bush, to rethink their stand on mandatory sentencing.

It would be a good first step to repairing a legal system that is rife
with injustice and disparities.