Thursday, June 24, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

EDITORIAL: Prison terms

It may seem bizarre that such a common-sense approach would even need to be debated, but it is nevertheless good news that the American Bar Association on Wednesday advocated that long prison terms be reserved for the most violent and incorrigible criminals.

You might ask: Well, isn't that the way it is now? Not necessarily.

Thanks to legislators terrified of being labeled soft on crime, our nation's prison population has soared over the past few decades, largely due to the incarceration of nonviolent offenders caught up in "mandatory minimum" sentencing laws. The cost to taxpayers has been billions.

The ABA's report was accepted by Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, who has previously embraced abolishing the mandatory minimum approach. "Society ought to ask itself how it's allocating its resources," he said Wednesday. "The phrase `tough on crime' should not be a substitute for moral reflection."

Indeed.

The ABA will vote later this year whether to embrace the report's conclusions. It should do just that.

And then it should mount a vigorous lobbying effort in Washington, D.C., and state capitals across the country, urging lawmakers to embrace policies designed to ensure that our harshest prison sentences are applied only to truly violent and serious offenders.