The Orwellian deception of Chuck Grassley’s “leniency industrial complex”

In a strongly-worded floor speech on Tuesday, Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Ia.) blasted the Smarter Sentencing Act, which is currently before his committee. "

*The Smarter Sentencing Act is a fairly modest bill that does not in any way repeal mandatory minimum sentences. But it does reduce some of them, and it gives federal judges more discretion in how to apply them, particularly ones that apply to nonviolent drug offenders."

*The problem is that Grassley believes, contrary to a mountain of evidence, that mandatory minimum sentences are effective tools for combating these problems. For instance, a recent report from the Brennan Center for Justice found that increased incarceration has had no effect on crime rates since 2000, and little effect before that. A report from the Sentencing Project last year found little evidence of a connection between prison rates and crime rates. Perhaps the most damning case against mandatory minimum drug sentences is that since they were instituted in the 80s and 90s, the use of illicit drugs has risen and their price has fallen dramatically.

Grassley also makes the gobsmacking claim that the Smarter Sentencing Act would increase government spending by $1 billion over the next 10 years. "

*But in reality, there's an awful lot more money to be made by keeping people in jail, as evidenced by the surprising rise of the for-profit prison industry in the U.S. This is an industry that spends millions in lobbying annually (including donations to Senator Grassley's campaigns) to oppose measures like the Smarter Sentencing Act that would cut into their bottom line.

The only thing Orwellian about the debate over the Smarter Sentencing Act is Grassley's continued insistence that it would cost money, promote crime and benefit an unnamed "industrial complex" -- when in fact it would do the exact opposite."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/03/12/the-orwellian-deception-of-chuck-grassleys-leniency-industrial-complex/