SMART on CRIME – Reforming The Criminal Justice System  for the 21st Century, August 2013

“At the direction of the Attorney General, in early 2013 the Justice Department launched a  comprehensive review of the criminal justice system in order to identify reforms that would ensure  federal laws are enforced more fairly and—in an era of reduced budgets—more efficiently.
Specifically, this project identified five goals: To ensure finite resources are devoted to the most important law enforcement priorities; To promote fairer enforcement of the laws and alleviate disparate impacts of the criminal  justice system; To ensure just punishments for low-level, nonviolent convictions; To bolster prevention and reentry efforts to deter crime and reduce recidivism; To strengthen protections for vulnerable populations.  As part of its review, the Department studied all phases of the criminal justice system—including  charging, sentencing, incarceration and reentry—to examine which practices are most successful at  deterring crime and protecting the public, and which aren’t. The review also considered  demographic disparities that have provoked questions about the fundamental fairness of the  criminal justice system.”