Amidst more guns and many more gun crimes (especially murders), can sentencing reforms move forward as media predicts "bloody summer"?

Because violent crime is on the rise (and perhaps also because the COVID beat has grown stale), I am now seeing a whole lot of recent media coverage and political punditry focused on rising crime rates and their political implications.  At times, I am a bit frustrated that this discussion often elides important data suggesting that it is primarily gun-related crimes that are on the rise while other crimes may still be on the decline.  To its credit, the New York Times has this new gun/crime piece headlined "An Arms Race in America: Gun Buying Spiked During the Pandemic. It’s Still Up."

But given that most murders in the US are gun murders (about 75%) and that most serious assaults involve guns and that violent crime has much greater salience than other crime, it is understandable that so much media coverage is focused on rising crime and associated punditry is focused on how political leaders should respond. That all said, I was still struck by this series of headlines the last few days from the Washington Post:

To the extent the inside-the-Beltway crowd still gives extra attention to the Post, key members of the political class cannot miss the "bloody summer" theme that the Post now seems eager to reinforce over and over.  Relatedly, a number of other media and political pundits are contributing to a narrative that certain political responses are needed.  Here is a sampling:

Notably, as highlighted in this post, the US Department of Justice last week announced a new "effort to help protect our communities from the recent increase in major violent crimes."  But, in part because there is no simple "solution" to rising gun crimes, this DOJ announcement did not have any headline-making elements likely to lead the press or pundits to starting praising DOJ's new efforts.  Simply put, the politics of crime and punishment is so challenging because horrible crimes will always garner more headlines than careful punishment practices.

So, with all the on-going rising crime chatter, can any sentencing reforms move forward?   I know better than to make bold predictions, and it is often wise in politics to bet on inertia.  Moreover, the long and winding five-year legislative road to the FIRST STEP Act of 2018 is a reminder that even modest reform efforts can take a very long time to become reality even when the political winds are all blowing in the right direction.  So, the simple, obvious answer to the question in the title of this post is perhaps just "no."

But law professors do not make a living on simple, obvious answers, and so I have more to say.  To be precise, I am eager to encourage elected officials and other policymakers to convert justified concerns over rising gun crimes into sound structural and strategic reform efforts.  The Biden Administration is now overdue to make appointments to the US Sentencing Commission (see here and here), and we are more generally long overdue for a long-discussed national crime commission (see talk of a National Criminal Justice Commission in 2009 and in 2010 and in 2015).  Though certain substantive reforms always represent an uphill legislative battle (particularly in a politically divided Congress), improving our infrastructure and knowledge base for future reform should still be possible, and might even be viewed as a priority, when crime and punishment is ever in the headlines.  States similarly might use this moment to create sentencing commissions (or better support and fund those already in existence) at a time when there is so much uncertainty and debate over just the "facts on the ground."

In addition, if bigger reforms falter, energy and efforts could and should be invested in bolstering and improving past reforms: e.g., at the federal level, making sure the FIRST STEP Act is fully implemented; at the state level, making sure various recent reform efforts are being soundly implemented and effectively studied.  And, even with concerns about rising crime, a lot of back-end and low-level reforms could even get an extra pragmatic push because we will not have room to incarcerate more serious, more risky repeat offenders if we keep our prisons filled with less serious, less risky first-timers.  

For so many reasons, I hope we can have productive sentencing reform summer rather than a "bloody" one.  But, I have to admit, I am growing particularly pessimistic on these fronts.

A few prior related posts:

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