The Sentencing Project Applauds the Reintroduction of Second Look Legislation
The Second Look Act has the potential to dramatically decrease the federal prison population, which has grown from 25,000 imprisoned people in 1980 to nearly 158,000 today.
Related to: Sentencing Reform, Federal Advocacy
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Representative Kamlager-Dove (D-CA) introduced the Second Look Act of 2024, a much needed and overdue sentencing reform that would allow individuals who have served at least 10 years in federal prison to petition a court to take a “second look” at their sentence. This legislation is backed by decades of research that shows that as people grow and mature, they typically age out of crime.
“The Sentencing Project has long supported ‘second look’ legislation as a vital tactic for not only putting an end to mass incarceration, but also increasing both racial justice and public safety. Research shows that extreme sentences don’t make communities safer. They waste scarce public resources on keeping people in prison long past the time when they pose a risk to the community,” said Kara Gotsch, Executive Director of The Sentencing Project.
The Second Look Act has the potential to dramatically decrease the federal prison population, which has grown from 25,000 imprisoned people in 1980 to nearly 158,000 today. That population includes thousands of people, including many elderly and medically vulnerable individuals, who have aged out of crime and pose little threat to the community.
“Thousands of Americans are behind bars due to the draconian sentences of the failed War on Drugs,” said Senator Booker. “Many of these individuals are serving excessive prison terms, are not a threat to the community, and are ready for re-entry, but they are stuck in overcrowded and costly prisons due to archaic sentencing laws. These policies don’t make us any safer and waste valuable taxpayer dollars. This bill gives people who have served their time a ‘second look’ at their sentence.”
Under the Second Look Act, any person who has served at least 10 years in federal prison could ask a judge to review their sentence. The judge would determine whether they are eligible for a sentence reduction or release based on their history of rehabilitation, risk to public safety, and readiness for reentry. The Act would also create a rebuttable presumption of release for petitioners who are 50 years of age or older, meaning the burden would shift to the government to demonstrate why the petitioner should remain behind bars.
“I was fortunate to receive a compassionate release in 2021,” said William “Bill” Underwood, Senior Fellow at The Sentencing Project for the Campaign to End Life Imprisonment. “The judge gave me a second chance, after I served 33 years of a life without parole sentence, because I created a ‘culture of responsibility’ in prison. But I’m not unique. Thousands of men and women like me are in prison, many of whom are older than me. They should be able to return to their loved ones.”
In June 2024, The Sentencing Project released Incarceration and Crime: A Weak Relationship, which highlighted the limited contribution of mass incarceration to the crime drop that began in the 1990s. The publication also showed that 46 U.S. states have been able to reduce both incarceration and crime levels in the past decade, and provides several evidence-based recommendations for increasing public safety without increasing incarceration rates.
More details about second look legislation being considered and enacted across the country can be found in The Sentencing Project’s May 2024 report, The Second Look Movement: A Review of the Nation’s Sentence Review Laws.
