A New Alternatives Agenda for the U.S. Sentencing Commission?

Abstract

The topic of alternatives to incarceration often seems at once forgotten and yet ever-present in the federal sentencing system. U.S. Sentencing Commission data indicate nine out of every ten federal sentences include terms of imprisonment, and yet the offenses and offenders in the federal system ought to permit great use of alternatives. This issue of FSR seeks to bring new attention to these topics, largely though the materials emerging from the Center for Justice and Human Dignity’s October 2023 “Rewriting the Sentence II Summit.” This event at George Washington University aspired to highlight how the full array of practitioners — judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys and other sentencing system actors — could make meaningful commitments to alternative to incarceration practices. This introductory essay provides context and framing for the materials that follow.