Carly Simon Quotes

Mandatory sentencing guidelines have become as complicated and detailed as the IRS code!

Mandatory minimum sentences give no discretion to judges about the amount of time that the person should receive once a guilty verdict is rendered. Harsh mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses were passed by Congress in the 1980s as part of the war on drugs and the "get tough" movement, sentences that have helped to fuel our nation's prison boom and have also greatly aggravated racial disparities, particularly in the application of mandatory minimum sentences for crack cocaine.

The fact that the United States, with less than 5 percent of the world's population incarcerates 25% of the world's prisoners is largly due to manditory minimum sentences.

Mandatory minimum sentences give no discretion to judges about the amount of time that the person should receive once a guilty verdict is rendered.

When you talk about mandatory minimums, it created a lot of unfairness in our sentencing.

I support the death penalty for the kingpin, the guy at the top, but I don't think you should throw a drug offender in jail for five years, and let a mugger out after a year.

The federal sentencing guidelines should be revised downward. By contrast to the guidelines, I can accept neither the necessity nor the wisdom of federal mandatory minimum sentences. In too many cases, mandatory minimum sentences are unwise and unjust.

We need to take a hard look at the war on drugs and the number of non-violent offenders who end up getting their lives destroyed by going to prison. We need to look at mandatory minimum sentencing and give judges more flexibility when there are issues of drug abuse or addiction.

In January 2013, I told the people in the Justice Department after the re-election that I wanted to focus on reforming the federal criminal justice system. I made an announcement in August of that year in San Francisco, when we rolled out the Smart on Crime initiative.

If we believe in our current penal process, then the penalties imposed by judges and juries should be the only sanctions for one's crime, not the invisible sanctions of the legislature.

Now, I - for several years while I was researching this book, I felt quite obsessed by thoughts about sentencing, punishment, how judges arrive at their decisions.

Prosecutorial charging and plea bargaining discretion, jury discretion to convict of one or another amorphously distinguished capital or non-capital crime, and gubernatorial discretion to grant or withhold clemency are all equally uncontrolled and uncontrollable.

The newest "fad" of the penologists is "indeterminate sentences".... This plan ... will work first rate if God will agree to act as the discharging officer. It is hardly likely, though, that he would accept the position: he has long been out of politics.

Mandatory minimum sentences should be abolished.

We cannot and should not repeal Article 17. We have to allow for the individualization of punishment and we have to take into consideration the emotional state of the perpetrator when he committed the crime. This prerogative is given to judges in the West as well.

Too many Americans are going to too many prisons for far too long.

The justice system is confused in trying to understand it, but frankly, if it paid attention to the really blatant cases and did a good job with that, we would be light years ahead of where we are now.

Manditory minimums were almost always excessive, and they made me feel unethical, even dirty.

I am deeply impressed with the gravity and wisdom with which most federal judges approach the responsibility of sentencing. It is a difficult, soul-searching task at best.

Circumstances of crimes vary. So do motives. And so do prospects for rehabilitation. The number of imponderables makes it impossible to sentence by formula and still sentence justly.

Even without mandatory sentences, judges are still capable of levying tough penalties for serious offenses - and just as in states like Texas that have 'tough on crime' reputations, this can be done without jeopardizing public safety.

I want to see changes in our criminal justice system.

I think we need to update the existing laws to create uniformity across the states so that all people with mental illness who find themselves in the criminal justice system for committing horrific crimes will be treated exactly the same.

I've seen signs of life with regards to bipartisan support for criminal justice reform, but the support does not reflect the necessary urgency for real reform. This must be made a priority.

Imprisonment, as it exists today, is a worse crime than any of those committed by its victims.