Mandatory minimum sentencing is partly responsible for the surge in America’s prison population. Critics of mandatory minimums have been sounding the call for years now, but little progress has been made. More and more, though, people of different political persuasions are united in the call for change. Even law enforcement leaders have begun to voice their opinions about mandatory minimums. Interestingly, the group Law Enforcement Leaders to Reduce Crime and Incarceration wants to see significant revisions to our nation’s mandatory minimum laws.

We were first introduced to Law Enforcement Leaders. The group, which consists of current and former law enforcement leaders from around the country, at both the federal and state levels, has used its might to work on a few key priorities: increasing alternatives to arrest and incarceration, reforming the criminal law to penalize fewer behaviors where appropriate, strengthening community-law enforcement ties (this was the topic of the Reforming Criminal Justice box ), and of course, reforming mandatory minimums.

Why would law enforcement leaders want to support mandatory minimum reform? Isn’t the classic law enforcement worldview one that is tough on crime? To answer these questions, we first have to take stock of the incarceration problem in the United States. Our country has 5 percent of the world’s population, but 25 percent of its prisoners. This has not produced obvious reductions in crime. And as Law Enforcement Leaders express it, “incarceration can increase future crime, as prison often acts as a ‘crime school.’” Since 2008, crime and incarceration have both started to fall. It is also very expensive to incarcerate so many people. Law Enforcement Leaders feels that by reducing unnecessary incarceration, we can still keep America safe and be tough on crime when appropriate.

There may be no choice in the matter, and individuals’ perspectives on the best approach for dealing with criminals may be irrelevant. Why? The imprisonment binge is simply unsustainable. Mandatory minimum sentencing, three strikes, and truth-in-sentencing laws have pushed prisons beyond their breaking points. Prison stays have increased markedly since 1990. Since the late 1980s, the federal prison population grew 400 percent! Many prisons are beyond capacity. We have no choice but to do something. Law Enforcement Leaders feel we need to revisit mandatory minimums for nonviolent and drug offenders: “Judges should be allowed more flexibility in sentencing and the discretion to determine appropriate punishments,” their mission statement says.

Some states have succeeded in reforming mandatory minimum laws, suggesting that reform on a larger scale is possible. For example, New York eliminated mandatory minimums for low-level drug offenses. Since doing so, imprisonment has declined. Kentucky took similar steps, passing 2011 HB 463, which limited the previous use of mandatory minimum sentencing for drug possession within 1,000 yards of a school. That radius included nearly all neighborhoods and thus imposed an undue burden on the criminal justice system. In 1 year after the change was put into effect, the prison population dropped by 1,400 people, saving the state nearly $30 million. Neither approach required abandoning a tough-on-crime stance for serious offenders.

Is there a place in the future for three strikes, truth-in-sentencing, and other policies that have prompted historically high levels of incarceration?