Titled “Mass Incarceration: Seizing the Moment for Reform,” the report offers several recommendations for changing sentencing laws and other policies on state and federal levels, including repealing or reducing mandatory minimum terms, reducing sentences for nonviolent offenses and providing sentencing alternatives to prison.
Judge Jed S. Rakoff, of Federal District Court in Manhattan, who is a member of the City Bar Association’s executive committee, said in an interview on Sunday, “Judges did not make the laws that have led to mass incarceration, but we have had to implement them and we have seen firsthand, therefore, some of the terrible results.”
He added, “We have a role to play in trying to make the public aware of problems in the criminal justice system in our country that we as judges see and participate in every day of our lives.”
