Lighter Prison Sentences for Nonviolent Drug Crimes

S. 1410 Smarter Sentencing Act

The Essentials
1. Over the past 30 years the number of federal prison inmates has risen more than 500 percent, largely because of Reagan-era mandatory minimum drug sentences for crack cocaine possession that locked up thousands of low-level, nonviolent offenders. The Smarter Sentencing Act, sponsored by Illinois Democrat Richard Durbin, is part of a movement in recent years to dial back those laws by releasing nonviolent prisoners and reducing federal penalties for some drug crimes.

2. The legislation builds on a 2010 law, the Fair Sentencing Act (FSA), which reduced the disparity between the punishments for crack and powder cocaine offenses. The bill would cut in half mandatory 10- and 20-year terms for some lesser federal drug crimes and give judges limited discretion to impose sentences below the mandatory minimum. It would also make the FSA retroactive, allowing prisoners convicted of nonviolent crack-related crimes before 2010 to ask for reduced sentences.