1.4 Million dollars and 30 years

Mandatory sentencing asks taxpayers and families to carry a punishment long after the courtroom is empty. A thirty-year federal sentence can become a decades-long public expense, while children and communities absorb consequences that never appear in the sentencing order.

The costs of mandatory sentencing are overwhelming, yet they remain largely hidden in a society shaped by mass incarceration. Dear friends of ours have a grown child who is about to be sentenced to thirty years in federal prison. In the federal system, there is no parole or re-evaluation of sentences. If this person lives long enough to serve the full term, taxpayers will spend roughly 1.4 million dollars, even before accounting for inflation. The person did not kill anyone, and two children will carry consequences of this punishment as collateral damage. What kind of society accepts that outcome?