Most criminal prosecutions occur at a level that is both neglected by many legal scholars and central to the lives of most people entangled in the criminal legal system: the level of the state. State v. Citizen prosecutions, which encompass most crimes ranging from robbery to homicide, are governed both by the federal constitution and by the constitution of the prosecuting state. This is no less true for sentences than for prosecutions. When it comes to sentences, state courts are bound by the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which famously proclaims that no American shall be subjected to “cruel and unusual punishment.” But state constitutions may go further than the federal constitution. States may adopt constitutional provisions analogous to the Eighth Amendment that establish even more effective guards against unreasonable or vindictive punishments. One state—Illinois—has so chosen. At Illinois’s most recent constitutional convention in 1970, a group of statewide delegates agreed to reconsider the limits set by the state’s constitution on criminal punishments. From that convention emerged a revolutionary idea: that Illinois should adopt in its constitution the strongest known language in the nation limiting a government’s ability to mete out extreme punishments to those citizens who have transgressed the criminal law—and clearly identifying the purpose of those criminal sentences as rehabilitation. Thus was born what appears in Illinois’s constitution today: the so-called proportionate-penalties clause. That clause, codified in 1970 as Article 1, Section 11 of the Illinois Constitution, proclaims that “all penalties shall be determined both according to the seriousness of the offense and with the objective of restoring the offender to useful citizenship. No conviction shall work corruption of blood or forfeiture of estate. No person shall be transported out of the State for an offense committed within the State.” This Article traces the origins of the proportionate-penalties clause back to the 1970 constitutional convention, using floor debate transcripts and other contemporaneous sources to establish that its authors did, indeed, intend Illinois sentences to serve rehabilitative purposes. To interrogate the context of those documents, this Article also examines the surrounding historical events of late 1960s-era Chicago, as well the lives and identities of the delegates who propelled this clause forward. This Article uses the authors’ words as prescient calls for a new interpretation of the proportionate-penalties clause that hews to their vision —and that can serve as a model for rethinking the guardrails around criminal punishments nationwide. Indeed, a constitutional scheme that insists that criminal penalties be directed at rehabilitative ends can and must carry implications for many of the statutes and rules that sustain our current system of mass incarceration.

大多数刑事诉讼发生在一个既被许多法律学者忽视又对大多数卷入刑事法律体系的人生活至关重要的层面：国家层面。州诉公民起诉涵盖从抢劫到杀人等大多数犯罪行为，受联邦宪法和起诉州宪法的管辖。对于判刑和起诉来说都是如此。在量刑方面，州法院受美国宪法第八修正案的约束，该修正案著名地宣称，任何美国人都不得受到“残酷和不寻常的惩罚”。但州宪法可能比联邦宪法更进一步。各州可以通过类似于第八修正案的宪法条款，建立更有效的防范措施，防止不合理或报复性惩罚。有一个州——伊利诺伊州——做出了这样的选择。在 1970 年伊利诺伊州最近一次制宪会议上，一群全州代表同意重新考虑该州宪法对刑事处罚的限制。该会议产生了一个革命性的想法：伊利诺伊州应该在其宪法中采用全国最强烈的已知语言，限制政府对违反刑法的公民实施极端惩罚的能力，并明确确定这些刑事判决的目的作为康复。由此诞生了今天伊利诺伊州宪法中的内容：所谓的比例处罚条款。该条款于 1970 年编入《伊利诺伊州宪法》第 1 条第 11 款，宣称“所有处罚均应根据罪行的严重性和使罪犯恢复有用公民身份的目标来确定。任何定罪都不会造成血缘腐败或没收财产。任何人不得因在本州境内犯下罪行而被遣送出境。”本文将比例刑罚条款的起源追溯到 1970 年制宪会议，利用法庭辩论笔录和其他同期资料来确定其作者确实打算将伊利诺伊州的判决服务于改造目的。为了探究这些文件的背景，本文还考察了 20 世纪 60 年代末芝加哥的周边历史事件，以及推动该条款向前发展的代表们的生活和身份。本文使用作者的话作为有先见之明的呼吁，要求对符合他们愿景的比例处罚条款进行新的解释，并且可以作为重新思考全国范围内刑事处罚护栏的模型。事实上，坚持刑事处罚旨在康复目的的宪法方案可以而且必须对维持我们当前大规模监禁制度的许多法规和规则产生影响。