Museum and Memorial Our Work News About Donate Excessive Punishment Decades of harsh and extreme sentencing have left us with the world's highest incarceration rate. EJI challenges excessive punishment, especially for children and people living with poverty, addiction, or mental illness. Drug Offenses “Three Strikes, You’re Out” “Truth in Sentencing” Our Work Incarceration is a permanent punishment for many Americans. Even after they’re released from prison, parole conditions require formerly incarcerated people to pay restitution, supervision fees, and other costs. Loss of employment and housing, threatened immigration status, and disqualification from welfare benefits, student loans, and certain licenses often condemn formerly incarcerated people and their families to lifelong poverty. We’re exposing harsh drug laws as racially biased and ineffective, challenging excessive habitual offender laws, and calling for smart reforms to undo our reliance on abusive and hopeless sentencing policies. Drug Offenses Disproportionate arrests, convictions, and sentences for drug offenses have devastated communities of color in America. Related Case Brooker v. Alabama EJI challenged a mandatory life-without-parole sentence imposed on a Black veteran for possessing marijuana. In 1971, President Richard Nixon declared a “war on drugs” to criminalize Black people.1 Today, almost half of the people in federal prison are incarcerated for a drug offense—and two-thirds of those are people of color.2 300K People in state and federal prisons for drug law violations today, up from less than 25,000 in 19803 45% Almost half of those in federal prison are incarcerated for a drug offense4 153% Average time spent incarcerated for federal drug offenses jumped 153% between 1988 and 20125 Between 1980 and 2011, arrests of African Americans for violent and property crimes fell, but rose dramatically for drug offenses.6 Black people are far more likely to be arrested for selling or possessing drugs than white people, even though white people use drugs at the same rates and are more likely to sell drugs.7 Locking people up for drugs does not reduce drug use or overdose deaths.8 Mandatory minimum sentences for drug and other offenders “have few, if any, deterrent effects.”9 At the same time, reducing prison terms for drug offenders doesn’t lead to more drug offenses.10 Drug addiction is not a criminal justice issue. It’s a health problem that should be managed by medical professionals. We advocate against prison for low-level drug offenders and for a health-care approach that provides treatment to reduce dependency and advances prevention efforts for people at high risk for substance use disorders. “Three Strikes, You’re Out” Most “three strikes” laws mandate a life sentence for a third felony conviction—even for people who have never committed a violent or aggravated crime. Related Resource 'You Ought to Get a Second Chance’ AL.com reports on people incarcerated in Alabama who were resentenced. Starting with Washington in 1993, more than half the states and the federal government enacted so-called “three strikes” laws within a decade.11 California’s three strikes law passed in 1994. It required that a person convicted of a felony who has two or more prior convictions for certain offenses must be sentenced to at least 25 years to life in state prison, even if the third offense is nonviolent. People have been sentenced to life in prison for shoplifting a pair of socks or stealing bread.12 Under Alabama’s habitual felony offender law, hundreds of people have been sentenced to life imprisonment without parole for petty, nonviolent crimes like stealing a bicycle.13 The federal three strikes provisions enacted in 1994 required mandatory life imprisonment for a serious violent felony third strike, but only one prior offense had to be a violent crime; the other could be a “serious drug offense.”14 Federal prosecutors can also file a notice invoking a provision that makes a third felony drug offense—state or federal, no matter how old the priors—subject to mandatory life in prison without the possibility of parole.15 More than two-thirds of people serving federal life or virtual life sentences today were convicted of nonviolent crimes, including 30% for a drug crime.16 “Truth in Sentencing” States enacted laws that required people to serve at least 85% of their prison sentences and many abolished parole altogether. Related Resource How Mandatory Minimums Enable Police Misconduct The New York Times The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 allotted $12.5 billion to states to increase incarceration. About half of that was earmarked for states that enacted stringent “truth-­in-sentencing” laws—requiring people to serve at least 85% of their prison sentences.17 By 1999, 29 states had abandoned “indeterminate sentencing” policies—which gave parole boards broad discretion to release people who had served, on average, 44% of their sentences—to adopt “truth-in-sentencing” regimes.18 Eight states (Arizona, Delaware, Kansas, Mississippi, Ohio, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin) abolished parole boards in 1994. By 2001, eight more states had done the same.19 In return, the federal government awarded states $2.7 billion to construct, expand, or renovate correctional facilities.20 The extreme sentencing laws enacted to get those federal dollars still keep people in prison today. Featured Work Mandatory sentencing has created cruel and harsh outcomes, especially for children, people with mental illness, and victims of violence and abuse. EJI fights to keep people who aren't a public safety risk out of prison and advocates for treatment, not imprisonment, for drug and other low-level offenses. Challenging Three Strikes EJI won freedom for people who were sentenced to die in prison for non-violent drug offenses or other petty crimes. Fighting Excessive Drug Laws EJI represented Lee Carroll Brooker, a veteran who was sentenced to die in prison for possessing less than three pounds of marijuana. Resisting Imprisonment for Nonviolent Offenses Ronald Elston was granted parole after EJI challenged his mandatory sentence to die in prison for several nonviolent offenses. 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