Policymakers should take steps to limit prison sentences in the United States—which incarcerates far more people than any other country and where the imprisoned population has soared 500% in recent decades—to 20 years for all crimes, a report published Wednesday by a leading criminal justice reform group argues.
"As the United States marks 50 years of mass incarceration, dramatic change is necessary to ensure another 50 do not follow," asserts the Sentencing Project report, entitled Counting Down: Paths to a 20-Year Maximum Prison Sentence. "In no small part due to long sentences, the United States has one of the world's highest incarceration rates, with nearly two million people in prisons and jails."
