Montana State Rep. G. Bruce Meyers (R). Photo from Facebook
Montana State Rep. G. Bruce Meyers (R), a member of the Chippewa Cree Tribe, calls for passage of S.2123, the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act. The bill will help address sky-high incarceration rates of Indian women in the federal system, he argues:
Part of the reason Native Americans are so over-represented when it comes to incarceration is due to the mandatory minimum laws that were enacted by Congress in the 1990's. The mandatory minimum movement was intended to bring more consistency to federal sentencing by restricting the discretion of judges and setting rules to guide the appropriate sentence for similar crimes. The majority of criminals behind bars today were sentenced under these mandatory minimum regulations. And most of those are incarcerated for non-violent drug offenses. But the high incarceration rates, especially among minority groups, that resulted from mandatory minimums have also resulted in prison overcrowding and have become very expensive. Those factors have prompted a real bi-partisan movement in Congress to reform judicial sentencing. That’s come in the form of a bill called the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2015, which would reduce mandatory minimums for nonviolent drug offenders from 10 to five years, and give more discretion to judges in sentences for first-time offenders.Get the Story:
G. Bruce Meyers: Justice for Native Americans in federal sentencing reform (The Billings Gazette 7/2) Also Today:
Panel: More data needed to fix sentencing disparities for American Indian defendants (The Pierre Capital Journal 6/8)
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