Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Rand Paul (R-KY) have
teamed up this year to introduce several bills aimed at reforming
the nation’s criminal justice system. The latest
Reason-Rupe poll finds Americans are receptive to several
of the proposed reforms.
77% Favor Eliminate Mandatory Minimums for Nonviolent
Offenders
The latest
Reason-Rupe poll finds that 77 percent of Americans favor
eliminating mandatory minimum prison sentences so that judges have
the ability to make sentencing decisions on a case-by-case basis.
Seventeen percent oppose this policy change, and 6 percent don’t
have an opinion.
Support for eliminating mandatory minimums has increased 6
points since
the poll first asked this question in December 2013.
Returning sentencing discretion to judges is popular across
partisanship, race, age, income, and education. For instance, 81
percent of Democrats support eliminating mandatory minimums, as do
75 percent of independents and 73 percent of Republicans, including
69 percent of tea party supporters. Similarly, 77 percent of white
Americans, 80 percent of African-Americans, and 73 percent of
Hispanics favor eliminating mandatory minimum prison sentences for
nonviolent offenders.
73% of Americans Support Restoring Voting Rights
Americans also support restoring voting rights to nonviolent
drug offenders who have served their sentences by a margin of 73 to
24 percent.
Restoring voting rights is also widely popular across
demographic groups, although Democrats are more supportive.
Eighty-one percent of Democrats favor allowing nonviolent drug
offenders who have served their sentences to vote and 17 percent
oppose. In contrast, 66 percent of non-partisan independents and 64
percent of Republicans agree; 28 and 32 percent oppose,
respectively.
Solid majorities across race/ethnic groups agree, but to
different degrees. Fully 91 percent of African-Americans support
restoring voting rights, compared to 66 percent of Hispanics and 72
percent of Caucasians.
Americans Sharply Divided Over Sealing Court Records
Americans are sharply divided
on whether to allow nonviolent drug offenders to petition a court
to have their records sealed once they’ve served their sentences,
making them inaccessible to the public without a court order, with
47 percent in favor and 48 percent opposed.
Significant partisan and demographic differences emerge on
allowing nonviolent drug offenders to petition a court to have
their court records sealed.
Slim majorities of Democrats (53%) and non-partisan Independents
(51%) support this reform, but a majority of Republicans oppose
(59%). Notably, tea party supporters are no more likely to oppose
(54%) than regular Republicans.
White Americans oppose allowing nonviolent drug offenders to
petition a court to have their court records sealed by a margin of
53 to 43 percent. Conversely, a majority of black (56%) and
Hispanic (64%) Americans favor this reform, while only a third
oppose.
Men are slightly more likely to favor than women: 51 percent of
men favor, 43 percent oppose; inversely, 43 percent of women favor
and 53 percent oppose.
The two youngest generations, Generation X and the Millennials
support allowing court records to be sealed, while the two older
generations—the Baby Boomers and Silent Generation—oppose. In fact
57 percent of Americans under 45 favor allowing nonviolent drug
offenders to petition to have their records sealed and 39 percent
oppose. However, by age 45, majorities of Americans begin to oppose
this type of reform: 57 percent oppose and 38 percent favor.
Notably, majorities of both white and nonwhite Americans under
45 support this reform (54 and 59 percent respectively). Only white
Americans over 45 oppose allowing court records to be sealed, 61 to
36 percent. Older nonwhite Americans are evenly divided at 46
percent.
Politicians may find criminal justice reform to be a winning
issue for them going forward for two primary reasons. First,
support is relatively stable within age cohorts, meaning that
younger Americans support criminal justice reform and will likely
continue to do so even as they age. Second, racial differences
largely disappear across young white and nonwhite Americans,
meaning that support for reform is broadly popular.
More from Reason’s Lauren Galik on criminal justice
reform, Annual
Privatization Report 2014, Criminal Justice and
Corrections.
The Reason-Rupe national telephone poll, executed
by Princeton Survey Research Associates International,
conducted live interviews with 1004 adults on cell phones (503) and
landlines (501) October 1-6, 2014. The poll’s margin of error
is +/-3.8%. Full poll results can be found here including
poll toplines (pdf)
and crosstabs (xls).
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