The high-profile killings rattling Memphis this week have added fuel to calls by some politicians for stricter sentencing laws throughout the U.S., sparking alarm among criminal justice reform advocates who say that approach is outdated and ineffective.
The political division has only deepened as many maintain that the deaths — of a jogger last week and a spate of shooting victims Wednesday — would have been avoided had the latest version of Tennessee's so-called “truth in sentencing” statute been in effect.
