Sessions Slated For Sentencing Commission
Judge William Sessions, who was nominated Monday to be chairman of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, hopes to continue reforming federal sentencing guidelines to address prison overcrowding. From the Rutland Herald:
“We’re at a particular point in history where prisons are incredibly overcrowded,” Sessions said. “We’re also at a particular point in time in which there’s a potential for real change.”
Sessions is the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for Vermont and has been a federal judge in Vermont since 1995. He was nominated by President Barack Obama, but will still need to be confirmed by the Senate, a process that he said can be highly political. Sessions, who made national headlines in 2002 when he declared the death penalty unconstitutional, is currently a vice chairman of the commission, which sets sentencing policy for the United States and advises Congress and the executive branch on crime policy.
Options other than standard incarceration should be used more to address prison overcrowding, Sessions said. That includes drug treatment courts, placement in home confinement or community confinement, and split sentences in which part of a sentence is served in prison and part is served in the community.
Sessions also hopes to make rehabilitation a higher priority in federal sentences. “For the last 15 years there’s been little interest in rehabilitation,” Sessions said. Instead, punishment has been the priority. “A person commits a crime, and they get X,” he said. “We’re going back to, ‘How do we get these people rehabilitated so when they get out of prison, they’re not a danger?’”
There is a great deal more background in the full article.
Drug Treatment & Diversion, Overcrowding, Re-Entry, Sentencing