Sentencing Project releases updated report on “The Second Look Movement”

I was pleased to learn via an email that The Sentencing Project has updated its report from last year (noted here) on second look sentencing developments.  This new 44-page report is titled “The Second Look Movement: An Assessment of the Nation’s Sentence Review Law,” and here is how its executive summary gets started:

Today, there are nearly two million people in American prisons and jails — a 500% increase over the last 50 years. In 2024, over 194,000 people in U.S. prisons were serving life sentences — nearly as many people as were in prison with any sentence in 1970.  Almost two-fifths of people serving life sentences are 55 or older, amounting to almost 70,000 people. People of color, particularly Black Americans, are represented at a higher rate among those serving lengthy and extreme sentences than among the total prison population.

Harsh sentencing policies, such as lengthy mandatory minimum sentences, have produced an aging prison population in the United States.  But research has established that lengthy sentences do not have a significant deterrent effect on crime and divert resources from effective public safety programs.  Most criminal careers are under 10 years, and as people age, they usually desist from crime.  Existing parole systems are ineffective at curtailing excessive sentences in most states, due to their highly discretionary nature, lack of due process and oversight, and lack of objective consideration standards.8 Consequently, legislators and the courts are looking to judicial review as a more effective means to reconsider an incarcerated person’s sentence in order to assess their fitness to reenter society.  A judicial review mechanism also provides the opportunity to evaluate whether sentences imposed decades ago remain just under current sentencing policies and public sentiment.

This report presents the evolution of the second look movement, which started with ensuring compliance with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions in Graham v. Florida (2010) and Miller v. Alabama (2012) on the constitutionality of juvenile life without parole (“JLWOP”) sentences.  This reform has more recently expanded to other types of sentences and populations, such as other excessive sentences imposed on youth, and emerging adults sentenced to life without parole (“LWOP”).  Currently, officials in 15 states, the District of Columbia, and the federal government have enacted a second look judicial review beyond opportunities provided to those with JLWOP sentences, and courts in 16 states determined that other lengthy sentences such as LWOP or term-of-years sentences were unconstitutional under Graham or Miller.  The report provides an overview of the types of second look and resentencing laws in the United States as well as illustrative information about and citations to some of the legislation and court decisions.