This new commentary authored by Jeremy Travis and Marc Mauer provides yet another reason to love the Garden State. The piece is headlined "New Jersey shows that we can end mass incarceration," and here are excerpt:
New Jersey is on a path to release more than 3,000 people from prison as part of Gov. Phil Murphy’s attempts to fight the spread of the COVID-19 virus in the criminal justice system. While the pandemic has kept far too many of us feeling trapped at home, Murphy is responding to this crisis in a way that prioritizes freedom for thousands of Americans. In fact, since the beginning of the outbreak, New Jersey’s prison population has shrunk by 35%.
But it shouldn’t take a deadly virus to know that too many Americans remain stuck in prisons, serving sentences that are unnecessarily long and being denied basic human dignities like privacy and safety....
Rather than asking taxpayers to maintain this massive prison system, our nation should be demanding a different investment strategy. Prison budgets should be cut and the savings directed to support crime prevention strategies of proven effectiveness, including substance abuse treatment programs, early intervention with families at risk, and community-based anti-violence initiatives. Savings should also be reinvested in Black and brown communities that have borne the brunt of this failed policy. Achieving this goal will move society toward repairing decades of harm while also advancing a stronger and healthier nation....
The United States has become the world leader in incarceration not simply because we send more people to prison. We also keep them behind bars far longer than other nations. One in every seven people in prison today — an estimated 206,000 — is serving some form of a life sentence. People are staying behind bars well into old age, leading modern-day prisons to resemble a network of high-security nursing homes.
These excessive sentences are counterproductive in reducing crime because individuals “age out” of their high crime years. Long prison terms frequently extend well past the point of diminishing returns for public safety. Other democracies have recognized this statistical truth and rarely imprison individuals for more than 20 years.
New Jersey is already starting to make these changes. Following the recommendations of a bipartisan Criminal Sentencing and Disposition Commission, the state is tackling critical reforms that may shrink the prison population and close the racial gap in incarceration rates. So far, the Legislature has debated policies like ending mandatory minimum sentences for many nonviolent crimes, expanding compassionate release, and resentencing people assigned multi-decade punishments when they were teenagers.
Under the leadership of Gov. Murphy, New Jersey is becoming a model for how states can use thoughtful, systemic, and data-driven policies to chart the end of mass incarceration and eliminate racial disparities.... In response to the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic, tens of thousands of people have been released from U.S. prisons. It took the United States 40 years to quadruple its incarceration rate. With brave leadership and sustained community advocacy, we can end the reality of mass incarceration and its underlying systemic racism within a generation. Our national promise of freedom demands no less.
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