Creating a Hungry Monster that Needs to be Fed: Shelia Bedi on Mandatory Sentences

The Justice Policy Institute (JPI) is a research organization that examines policies and practices of criminal justice systems across the country. They have built their reputation by asking critical questions about what works in criminal justice systems, then using solid research to answer those questions. JPI director Sheila Bedi took time to answer our questions about what happens to states that pass mandatory sentencing laws.

 

 

Shelia Bedi:  Generally mandatory sentences are statutory requirements that judges impose a specific sentence on an individual who commits a specific offense. Mandatories strip judges of their discretion to consider any mitigating factors and to evaluate an individual’s prospects for rehabilitation. Mandatories are frequently discussed in the context of this country’s failed drug war.

 

 

SB: Mandatory sentences cannot be a vehicle to cure the bias that infects our criminal justice system. Researchers have found that after mandatory minimums were implemented in New York, sentencing variation actually increased. In addition, mandatory sentences have greatly contributed to the over-incarceration of people of color. A study of mandatory sentencing in Maryland in 2002 showed that of the nearly 500 people sent to prison for a mandatory minimum, nine out of 10 were black. You can’t create fairness by stepping in once a case is before a judge.

 

The causes of racial disproportionality in our justice system are complex and varied—if we really wanted a fairer system, we would start by evaluating the way we concentrate police in certain communities, and mapping where we put positive, community-building resources. We specifically target communities of color by over-resourcing police— specifically drug crime-related law enforcement - and under-resourcing schools, mental health services and economic development. So, as a result, mandatory sentences wind up amplifying all the ways the system ensnares black and brown people.

 

The Vortex, a report released by JPI in 2007, has some great data documenting racial disparities in drug imprisonment. The thing that is so compelling about that data is that we know that whites and blacks use and sell drugs at the same rate, but blacks are imprisoned at 10 times the rate of their white counterparts. So when more people of color are coming before judges more often than their white counterparts for the same crime, you can see that removing judicial discretion won’t create a more just system.

 

 

SB: That’s such an important question. The actual cost of implementing new mandatory sentences depends on what your state spends on corrections—but we know that mandatories have exponentially increased the cost of state correctional systems, and have contributed to the current state budget crisis. In 2006, Maryland admitted 94 people to the state prison on a mandatory minimum drug sentence, which translates to an approximate cost of $2.5 million each year per person.

 

And more importantly, the question of cost underscores why we have a criminal justice system. Ideally, you take someone and rehabilitate them, and they start contributing back to the community positively. But with mandatory sentences, nothing a person does inside has any effect on their sentence—there’s no incentive to better yourself because you’re forced to serve every day of your sentence—no matter how much you achieve while inside.

 

With mandatory minimums, you are stripping judicial authority of judges, but you’re also making the parole board (if there is one) obsolete. Parole boards add an additional level of discretion by identifying who they determine to be rehabilitated, who is ready to return to the community. When we tie the hands of our parole board and our judges, we flush our tax dollars down the toilet by paying to incarcerate people who are no threat to public safety and who have paid their debt to society so to speak.

 

There is also a tremendous opportunity cost here—when we fund prisons that house people serving mandatories, lawmakers can’t afford to fund education, mental health treatment, substance abuse and job training. And those are the programs that are actually proven to prevent crime.

 

Mandatory minimums serve only one purpose—to feed the prison industrial complex. Once all these prisons were built, they had to be filled with bodies, and mandatories ensure that our prisons stay at capacity. The prison system has become a hungry monster that needs to be fed.

 

 

SB: Well, right now, Oregon is moving in the opposite direction as the rest of the country. Most states that have these laws started with mandatory sentences for drug crimes, then expanded to more petty crimes, then more serious crimes. And now they’re pulling back. This list of states is extensive, including New Mexico, Mississippi, Connecticut, Louisiana, North Dakota, Michigan and Maine.

 

These states are finding that it’s not supportable, and it undermines the reason we have a criminal justice system. We want judges to do their jobs, we want individualized decisions, that’s why we have the process that we do. Everyone is entitled to their day in court, and mandatories remove a fundamental tenent of our judicial process.

 

 

SB: States got into the mandatory minimum craze as a result of our failed drug war. But the states cannot support it, cannot afford, and are not seeing reductions in crime from these laws. Mandatory minimums are driven by fear, and the sense that we must be “tough on crime”--not research or data about what keeps communities safe.

 

Criminal justice policy is frequently made in such a reactionary, knee-jerk way. If you watch the way lawmakers award tax benefits or craft economic development incentive packages, you’ll notice that they engage economists who do projections and run numbers. Those hearings might be mind-numbing but they reveal a deliberative, informed, rational process. Contrast that with the criminal justice policy process—lawmakers will enact laws that will lock up tens of thousands of people on little more than a whim. Our elected officials must begin applying rigor and research to our criminal justice laws.

 

I’ve worked closely with lawmakers, and they have confessed that they feel pressure to be perceived as tough on crime. But lawmakers underestimate how sophisticated the taxpayers are—we expect a return on our investments. When taxpayers realize how much we spend to incarcerate over 2 million people in this country, and how this over-incarceration actually exacerbates the conditions that create crime—they get outraged. There is significant public support for sane criminal justice policy.

 

 

SB: In Michigan, which had the fifth largest prison system in the country in 2002, legislators took direct action to change sentencing guidelines and mandatory sentences. In the year that followed implementation of the law, fewer people were held in prisons without any detrimental effect on public safety.

 

Acknowledging budget crises, Texas, Nevada, and Kansas, states known for tough sentencing policies, are making significant changes to parole laws that would allow people to leave prison sooner with better services. So far, there is no evidence that these laws have negatively impacted public safety. In a state budget, there really are tradeoffs – more money for one program means less for another. With the current economy, we are going to be facing tough decisions.

 

Now that states are faced with millions of dollars in budget shortfall, they are finally taking the opportunity to evaluate their spending practices and finding that prisons are a cost-ineffective means at dealing with public safety. This evaluation should’ve taken place before mandatory minimums were put in place, not 20 years later and after billions of dollars have been wasted and thousands of lives destroyed with no return.

 

So if they weren’t going to have money for mental health, public schools, that began to matter. Those debates seem to have been the tipping points. The initial findings are that investing in education, mental health, and addiction treatment reduce the need for prisons in the long run.

 

 

SB: What we need to know is that punishing “them” means punishing ourselves. It might seem politically expedient to be “tough on crime” and pay for a wasteful, ineffective prison system, but the real costs come down the road when there is no money for transportation, education, and public health. Then we realize that as we’re putting people in prison, we’re damaging their ability to contribute to society. And what are the values we have as a society? Is ‘teaching someone a lesson’ more important than being able to afford schools for our children?

 

We need to be asking what the impact of mandatory sentences is compared to the cost. The answer is that there is no clear public safety benefit, and these laws funnel money away from the investments that produce long term reductions in crime.

 

 

This article was originally printed in the Summer 2008 issue of Justice Matters