Extreme Sentencing

Extreme sentences are the driving force behind the “incarceral state,” or what The New Jim Crow, describes as mass incarceration. Extreme sentences are vastly disproportionate to culpability and violate the most fundamental values of our criminal justice system without serving any of its goals. Extreme sentences:

• destabilize families and communities, particularly for low-income communities of color
• fuel racism and hate
• fly in the face of recidivism data
• impose significant financial and opportunity costs to taxpayers
• burden prisons with the care of our sick and elderly, and
• ignore people’s fundamental ability to change.