Sentencing Reform in Washington State.

Long and life sentences are a driving force of mass incarceration, and are shown to be inequitable, ineffective, and costly. In 2023, nearly half of Washington State’s prison population was serving a sentence of ten or more years. As public consciousness about the harms of mass incarceration has grown, Washington, like other states, has created opportunities for some people serving long and life sentences to have their sentence and releasability (re)considered.

To assess the reach and impact of these "second look" efforts, Professor Katherine Beckett and I collected, cleaned, and analyzed data on five recent reforms implemented by the Washington State Supreme Court and Washington State legislature. We submitted dozens of public disclosure requests to Washington's Department of Corrections and all 39 local prosecutor offices in the state. Ultimately, we find that of the nearly 7,000 people serving lengthy sentences in Washington, fewer than 400 have been released under recent reforms, indicating that these changes to law and policy have been woefully inadequate in advancing their aims of reducing carceral sentences. 

• The policy reports detailing this research can be found here and here. We are currently translating these reports into an academic article.

• Our findings have been presented to Washington State legislators, judges, prosecutors, and incarcerated people. We are partnering with public defenders and others to use our findings to expand counsel for currently incarcerated people and to encourage more comprehensive sentencing reform.

• Katherine Beckett and I co-authored an earlier article about the harms of mass incarceration in Crime and Justice here.