Community members and activists attended a packed town hall meeting this morning in South Los Angeles. The meeting, hosted by U.S. Representative Karen Bass of California’s 37th Congressional District and featuring U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), was billed as a “Criminal Justice Forum” with a focus on the reform of federal mandatory minimum sentencing laws. 

In her opening remarks, Bass referred to several criminal justice issues she is working to reform, including the “war on drugs” and, to much applause, “the wasteful spending of billions of dollars that has gone to incarcerate people.” Introducing Rep. Scott, Bass noted that he led the passage of the 2010 Fair Sentencing Act, which reduced the racial disparity in sentencing for cocaine possession. 

Taking the microphone, Scott recited several “tough on crime” slogans which he described as political tools rather than effective crime reduction policies, such as  “three strikes and you’re out,” and “you do the adult crime, you do the adult time.” The Three Strikes Law, also known as Proposition 184, was passed in California in 1994 and mandated that anyone convicted of three felonies be given a minimum sentence of 25 years to life in prison (in 2012, the law was revised to specify that the “third strike” would mandate the 25-to-life sentence only if the offense were “serious or violent” in nature).  

Mandatory minimum sentencing laws are “one of the worst culprits,” said Scott, in contributing to the rate at which the U.S. incarcerates its people—which, at 716 per 100,000, is by far the highest in the world. Noting that despite a Pew Research Center study finding that incarcerating above 500 people per 100,000 actually decreases public safety, the “tough on crime” approach is still favored in the U.S., Scott advised policymakers to reverse course: “When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you ought to do is stop digging. Well, if you’re finding that we have too many mandatory minimums, the first thing we have to do is stop passing new ones.”

Rep. Scott has co-authored two pieces of bipartisan legislation designed to reform mandatory minimum sentencing laws. The Justice Safety Valve Act would allow judges to assign sentences appropriate to offenses, rather than being forced to assign a mandatory minimum even when it defies “common sense,” Scott said. He cited Marissa Alexander of Jacksonville, FL as an example of the illogic of mandatory minimums: in 2010, then-pregnant Alexander fired a “warning shot” in the air in an attempt to protect herself from her estranged husband, who had a history of domestic violence. For discharging a weapon within city limits, Alexander received a mandatory 20-year minimum sentence—had she fired at her husband, she would have received a maximum sentence of 15 years for non-aggravated manslaughter, according to Scott. The Safety Valve Act would have allowed the judge to sentence based on the details of the case, rather than mandatory minimum laws.

Introducing his second bill, the Youth PROMISE Act, Scott cited a Human Rights Watch finding that in the U.S., there are around 2,600 juveniles serving life sentences without the possibility of parole, while there are none anywhere else in the world. YPA would implement “evidence-based prevention and intervention strategies” such as after-school programs, prenatal care programs, and pre-school programs in communities with high crime rates. Such programs, according to Scott, are proven to reduce crime rates. Referring to the June 7 shootings at Santa Monica College, Scott said that “the Youth PROMISE Act is one thing, along with mental health services, that has the potential to reduce these mass shootings.”

The audience of roughly 200 cheered throughout Rep. Bass and Rep. Scott’s speeches. The meeting was held at Bethel A.M.E. Church in the Manchester Park neighborhood of South Los Angeles, an area where 11.7% of residents 25 and older have a four-year degree, a rate defined as low for the city and for the county by the Los Angeles Times. In his speech, Scott pointed out that low education rates often lead to low employment rates in a community, and in turn, low employment rates often lead to high incarceration rates. He also noted that while the U.S. imprisons its general population at a rate of 716 per 100,000 people, it imprisons its black population at a rate of 2,200 per 100,000 people—a rate that directly affects the 78.6% black community Bethel A.M.E. Church serves.

Several activist and social service organizations, including Community Coalition, Shields for Families, and representatives of the Mayor’s Office of Gang Reduction and Youth Development, set up booths before and after the meeting to answer questions and distribute literature. 

Another town hall meeting in South Los Angeles is scheduled for June 20 with L.A. City Attorney Mike Feuer.

Reach Deputy Editor Lauren Madow here. Follow her here.