New Judge Gertner opinion asserts extended prison term would reduce public safety
It is fitting to follow news of a new record high US incarceration population with an interesting new opinion from federal District Judge Nancy Gertner, which contends that an extended prison term may reduce public safety in some cases. These thoughts are developed in US v. Haynes , No. 06cr10328-NG (D. Mass. June 3, 2008) (available for download below), and here is part of the introduction of the opinion:
At the time of sentencing, Haynes had already served approximately thirteen months in pretrial detention, longer than the sentence he served for the 1998 conviction. The recommended sentence under the United States Sentencing Guidelines Manual, 33-41 months, was driven exclusively by the quantity of drugs for which he was responsible (on those two occasions in May 2006), the location of the sales, and his criminal history (Criminal History Category II). The government argued that the lower end of the Guidelines, 33 months, was entirely appropriate, not just because the Guidelines recommended it, but because “public safety,” one of the factors in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), demanded it.
I found otherwise. While public safety certainly calls for the incapacitation of some, there is another side to the equation, which, after United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005), may finally be given the serious consideration it deserves. The facts presented by Haynes’ case force the Court to confront the inescapable fact that disadvantaged communities like Bromley-Heath are injured both by crime and by the subsequent mass incarceration of their young men. See Donald Braman, Criminal Law and the Pursuit of Equality, 84 Tex. L. Rev. 2097, 2114-17 (2006). Compare Randall Kennedy, Race, Crime, and the Law 373-76 (1997), with Todd R. Clear, Imprisoning Communities: How Mass Incarceration Makes Disadvantaged Neighborhoods Worse (2007). Courts may no longer ignore the possibility that the mass incarceration of nonviolent drug offenders has disrupted families and communities and undermined their ability to self-regulate, without necessarily deterring the next generation of young men from committing the same crimes.
Haynes is an individual for whom continued incarceration beyond thirteen months makes no sense. Indeed, here, public safety seems to require the opposite of the government’s request; it requires that Haynes be permitted to return to his children so that they do not repeat his errors. Thus, I sentenced Haynes to time served: the thirteen months he had already served in pretrial detention plus a carefully considered supervised release program.