全球智库信息集成服务系统

This report evaluates the effectiveness of sentencing reform implemented since the early 1980s. These reforms have been dominated by mandatory penalties for violent offenders, repeat offenders, and drug traffickers. The authors conclude that the beliefs on which public support for these reforms rested were largely false, that the evidence of their effectiveness at reducing crime is mixed, and that the increases in incarceration that resulted have been distributed unevenly.