Sentencing & Prison Reform
1. A Quick Overview
The U.S. has given up on its prison system while aggressively incarcerating its populous. It is the most imprisoned nation in the world. It has private prisons. It practices torture and allows violence in its prisons. It takes away all hope of rehabilitation because re-incarceration pays more. How can the wealthiest country in the world have such a broken and inhumane system?
The Free Republic of California reconstructs judicial sentencing and the prison infrastructure in our Constitution. Article 2, Section 2 states:
No one shall be sentenced to death, tortured or otherwise treated in a manner violating human dignity…
This Clause obligates the government to discard the death penalty (also see the Death Penalty Activation section) and treat its incarcerated persons with human dignity in addition to punishments not being excessive, unusual, cruel or extraordinary. It puts the entire government on Constitutional notice for inhumane behaviors, such as handcuffing Freddie Gray for a ‘rough ride.’ In prison, solitary confinement as well as a lack of outdoor time, exercise, safety, or education, would violate the Clause as inhumane.
The Clause continues:
No punishment shall be excessive, unusual, cruel or extraordinary. No excessive bail shall be required, nor excessive fines imposed.
Banning excessive bail is critical to reforming the U.S. style bail system, one that currently punishes the financially encumbered, creates modern day debtors’ prisons and violates basic concepts of humanity and rationality.
Our Constitution’s Article 6, Section 7 takes another big leap forward:
In order to protect the mission and liberty of California, a Sentencing Tribunal shall be established and tasked with the role of sentencing in criminal cases. The Tribunal will work in co-ordination with the judge and jury in criminal cases to provide a just term of imprisonment. The Tribunal shall be composed of former judges, elected overseers, mental health professionals, prison experts, rehabilitation experts, criminal law scholars and human rights observers, all tasked with the furtherance of safety, humanity and rehabilitation.
This is a revolutionary stance on sentencing practices. It shifts power from individual judges and mandatory sentencing guidelines to a consortium of experts whose goals and knowledge align with the great responsibility of taking away a person’s liberty.
2. Influence Your Representatives
Write them all. It takes five seconds.
Here is some suggested text to use:
Dear _______________,
I am writing to ask that you take seriously the intent of the U.S. Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment:
Excessive jail sentences are cruel and unusual.
Solitary confinement is cruel and unusual.
Lack of mental health, education, environment and physical opportunities for rehabilitation in cruel and unusual.
Unilateral sentencing and mandatory sentencing guidelines are cruel and unusual.
Excessive bail requirements are cruel and unusual.
Privatization of prisons is cruel and unusual.
Something is horribly wrong when you see at the state of our prisons and the mass incarceration of our citizenry. Do we believe in fairness? Do we believe in rehabilitation? Do we believe in humanity?
Please advocate for a Constitutional amendment that clarifies the scope of what is ‘cruel and unusual’ and bans the privatization of prisons.
Sincerely yours,
X
