For the last eight years, and until just a few days ago, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont was Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, an extremely powerful position. In this piece from the Marshall Project, Sen. Leahy tells us what the President should say tonight about criminal justice reform:
The biggest issue facing our justice system today is our mass incarceration problem. The president has said before that we should enact laws that ensure "our crime policy is not only tough, but also smart." But tonight, while he has the attention of every member of Congress and the American people, I want to hear the president say that he supports an end to all mandatory minimum sentences, as I do. Mandatory minimums are costly, unfair, and do not make our country safer. For too long they have served as an easy way to score cheap political points: Want to prove you're tough on crime? Just add another mandatory minimum to the law. No need to bother with evidence that they do not make us safer; they make a nice talking point. That policy fallacy is one of the reasons we have the largest prison population in the world. And why $7 billion - nearly a third of the Justice Department's budget - goes to the Bureau of Prisons instead of to community policing, victims services, or prison diversion programs that would make us safer and save taxpayers money.
I have made my position clear on mandatory minimums -- they are a needed restraint on foolish and ideological judges. Congress was wise to pass them and wise to keep them.
Thus I wish to note here only that Sen. Leahy, for all his present indignation, did not so much as bring up for a vote, in the years he easily could have, legislation (the Justice Safety Valve Act) he co-sponsored, which would have done exactly what he says the political branches have been so remiss for failing to do.
P.S. Sen. Leahy to the contrary, the biggest issue facing our justice system today is that we have almost 10,000,000 serious crimes a year, not counting trafficking in hard drugs. That is well over four times the number of inmates.
(Hat tip to Doug Berman at SL&P).
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