Opinion | Every D.A. in America Should Open a Sentence Review Unit

Why should prosecutors be the ones to lead the movement to cut down long sentences? Because they were, and in many places still are, a major driver of the country’s sentencing explosion. In the courtroom, they have pushed for maximum sentences and resisted appeals for leniency. In statehouses, they have lobbied legislatures for longer sentences and opposed reform efforts.

Despite this history, there are signs of progress. As evidence mounts that many crime survivors doubt prison’s value, a few prosecutors have begun to reduce excessive sentences. In Seattle, the district attorney, Dan Satterberg, has supported clemency applications for people who were sentenced under Washington State’s harsh three-strikes law. In Georgia, a group of district attorneys agreed to re-evaluate drug sentences imposed during the crack epidemic and have already helped some people go home. And in California, prosecutors supported recent legislation that allows them to form sentence review units.

Larry Krasner, Philadelphia’s district attorney, intends to open a sentence review unit. “Sometimes extreme sentences reflect unscientific beliefs; sometimes they reflect racism; and sometimes they reflect judges who punish you 10 times harder if you went to trial,” he told us in an interview. In all these cases, he said, the upshot is the same: “There are a lot of people in jail who very clearly don’t need to stay in jail.”

For now, sentence review remains ad hoc. But demands from citizens and leaders can help these local efforts grow into a national movement. Cutting down excessive sentences will not, on its own, solve the crisis of mass incarceration or bring our prison population in line with the rest of the world. But failing to act will ensure that the wounds caused by those sentences never heal.

James Forman Jr., (@jformanjr) a professor at Yale Law School, is the author of “Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America.” Sarah Lustbader (@SarahLustbader) is senior legal counsel at the Justice Collaborative, a nonprofit organization working to reform the criminal legal system, and a senior contributor to The Appeal.

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