American sentencing laws are rigid, harsh, and often unjust. Mass incarceration is a tragedy and a national embarrassment. Laws enacted in the 1980s and 1990s that mandated lengthy prison terms are the primary causes. The challenges are to undo mass incarceration, repeal or fundamentally overhaul the laws that caused it, and rebuild American sentencing systems. American legislators have not yet seriously addressed the subject. Hundreds of minor changes have recently been enacted, but they nibble at the edges—creating narrow exceptions to harsh laws for first offenders, narrowing criteria for probation and parole revocation, and establishing new treatment and “reentry” programs. These changes are important to individuals they affect but will not reverse mass incarceration or prevent individual injustices. Meaningful change will occur only when the mandatory minimum, three-strikes, life without parole, truth in sentencing, and comparable laws that required prison terms of historically unprecedented severity are repealed and new laws authorizing the release of large numbers of current prisoners are enacted and implemented. Whether these things happen will determine whether mass incarceration and wholesale injustices are much different in 2025 than they were in 2017.

中文翻译：

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使美国判决公正，人道和有效

美国量刑法是严格，严厉的，而且常常是不公正的。大规模监禁是一场悲剧，是一场全国性的尴尬。造成长期监禁的法律是1980年代和1990年代颁布的。面临的挑战是撤消大规模监禁，废除或从根本上改革造成监禁的法律，以及重建美国的判刑制度。美国立法者尚未认真解决这个问题。最近颁布了数百项微小的变更，但它们却changes之以鼻-为初犯者制定了苛刻法律的狭义例外，缩小了缓刑和假释的标准，并建立了新的待遇和“再入境”计划。这些变化对他们影响的个人很重要，但不会逆转大规模监禁或防止个人不公。只有当强制性最低，三击，无假释的生活，量刑的真相，以及需要监狱历史上史无前例的严厉刑法的可比法律被废除，并且颁布了授权释放大量现役囚犯的新法律，并且将颁布新法律时，才会发生有意义的变化。已实施。这些事情是否会发生，将决定2025年的大规模监禁和大规模的不公正待遇是否与2017年相比有很大不同。