Professor Berman's Sentencing Law & Policy Blog today has a copy of this annual letter from the Department of Justice to the U.S. Sentencing Commision. It appears the national budget cuts have forced DOJ to recognize the need to control prison spending through less incarceration and greater use of non-prison alternatives. Among the highlights quoted by Prof. Berman,
From page 3: "At the state level, leaders in and out of government have recognized both the costs and benefits of the sentencing reforms of the late 20th Century. From that recognition - derived from a variety of studies of these 20th Century reforms - a new transformation in sentencing and corrections policy is taking place in much of the country. The dichotomy of determinate and indeterminate sentencing is breaking down and is being replaced by a pragmatism that recognizes that (1) budgets are finite; (2) imprisonment is a power that should be exercised sparingly and only as necessary; and (3) while determinate sentencing elements do indeed promote some of the core purposes of sentencing, reducing reoffending and promoting effective reentry are also core goals that can be successfully achieved and must be included in any effective sentencing and corrections framework."
From page 7: "The Budget Control Act of 2011 sent a clear signal that the steady growth in the budgets of the Department of Justice, other federal enforcement agencies, and the federal courts experienced over the past 15 years has come to an end. Before sequestration, overall budgets had mostly been flat over the past four years. However, even then, as prison and detention spending had increased, other criminal justice spending, including aid to state and local enforcement and prevention and intervention programs, had decreased. In fact, the trend of greater prison spending crowding out other crucial justice investments goes back at least a decade and has caused a significant change in the distribution of discretionary funding among the Department's various activities.
"Now with the sequester, the challenges for federal criminal justice have increased dramatically and the choices we all face - Congress, the Judiciary, the Executive Branch - are that much clearer and more stark: control federal prison spending or see significant reductions in the resources available for all non-prison criminal justice areas. If the current spending trajectory continues and we do not reduce the prison population and prison spending, there will continue to be fewer and fewer prosecutors to bring charges, fewer agents to investigate federal crimes, less support to state and local criminal justice partners, less support to treatment, prevention and intervention programs, and cuts along a range of other criminal justice priorities."
From page 9: "The reforms we are focused on - and that we think the Commission can help bring about - are changes to statutory and guideline drug penalties; improving reentry programming and providing greater incentives to offenders to participate in these programs; and simplifying and reforming the guidelines to better meet all the goals of the Sentencing Reform Act, including controlling the prison population. We believe drug penalties can be reformed, like many states have done, to focus severe penalties on serious and repeat drug traffickers, while providing alternatives or reduced sentences for non-violent, less serious offenders. We believe that both changes to the statutory minimum penalties in title 21 and changes to the so-called 'safety valve' exception to mandatory minimum penalties are needed.
"We are already working towards reforming some mandatory minimum laws along these lines - and along the lines suggested by the Commission in its report on the subject. Similarly, prison credits or other incentives can be reformed to promote more effective and efficient use of prison resources while simultaneously reducing reoffending. The President's last two budgets have included proposals in this area, and we think now is the time to enact them. In addition, we believe the guidelines can be reformed - by making them simpler - to reduce litigation and prison costs, reduce manipulation of sentences by litigants, and improve sentencing consistency."
No word on whether and, if so, how any of this will trickle down to local U.S. Attorney Offices or the EDCA U.S. Attorney.