Criminal Sanctions

The United States is responsible for 25% of the world’s prison population; well over half our prison population is African-American or Latino; and most states now spend more on their correctional systems than on education. The ABA Commission on Effective Criminal Sanctions is an outgrowth of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s 2003 call to the legal profession to address the social and economic problems created by this country’s over-reliance on incarceration as a crime control strategy. Our criminal sanctioning system should not exacerbate the problem of crime. The ABA has adopted policy, supported by national organizations representing prosecutors and defenders, that the association hopes will be the basis for a broad criminal justice reform agenda.