By Zoraida Fernandez

Over the past few years, there has been an important and growing societal reckoning with the damage done by the 1994 federal crime bill and the racist legacy of mass incarceration.

However, as a new report from Citizens for Juvenile Justice reminds us, the federal crime bill did not exist in isolation: it inspired a wave of misguided “tough-on-crime” bills in the states, including Massachusetts’s Armed Career Criminal Act (“ACCA” — Mass. Gen. Laws Ch. 269 § 10G), with lasting harm on Massachusetts communities of color, particularly youth of color.

ACCA imposes harsher penalties on people convicted of unlawful possession of a firearm who previously had been convicted of at least one “violent crime” or “serious drug offense.” As this report demonstrates, however, ACCA has imposed unwarranted and draconian punishments on people, especially some of the most vulnerable in our community, including young people of color. And its effects have had devastating and long-lasting consequences not just for those incarcerated, but the communities who bear the burden of losing families to incarceration for extended periods.

How ACCA works to punish people more severely and curtail their rights

When the government convicts a person of unlawfully possessing a weapon, the conviction may trigger consideration of harsher punishment if the person has prior convictions for certain crimes (“predicate offenses”). When there is even one such prior conviction, including ones from someone’s youth (“juvenile adjudication”), ACCA imposes harsher punishments that must be served in state prison. One such prior conviction would trigger a mandatory minimum sentence of 3 years, two such prior conventions would trigger a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years, and three such prior convictions would trigger a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years.

Strikingly, the report’s authors found that nearly half of all defendants charged under ACCA were charged under its most punitive provision, mandating a minimum of 15 years of incarceration.

• ACCA imposes harsh punishment regardless of an individual’s circumstances

In non-ACCA criminal cases, judges consider not just the circumstances of the offense and the person’s criminal history, but also the person as an individual, when imposing a sentence. The defendant is entitled to present contextual information to explain why they committed the offense, information related to the impact of incarceration on their family or community, or any other information that would assist a judge in imposing a fair sentence. ACCA eliminates all contextual information. It also eliminates all opportunities for the criminal legal system to address the root causes of an individual’s repeat offending; it requires judges to simply impose at least the minimum term of years prescribed, no questions asked.  

• Offenses committed by children can count as ACCA predicate offenses

Alarmingly, even juvenile adjudications—offenses that a person committed as a child—can count as predicate offenses for ACCA. There is a wealth of research indicating the immaturity of children’s developing brains and how this can affect decision-making. Given all this evidence, continuing to consider these offenses to justify enhanced punishments is deeply unjust. 

• Prosecutors threaten defendants with ACCA enhancements to secure guilty pleas

Federal and state prosecutors routinely use the threat of charging defendants under ACCA as a cudgel to secure quick guilty pleas. When criminal defendants are faced with an enhanced 15-year sentence, the best of bad options for them may be to plead guilty to the charged offense—whether they committed the crime or not—rather than go to trial and risk spending decades in prison. Likewise, the report notes that criminal defense attorneys have had to forego filing motions to dismiss on behalf of their clients because prosecutors threaten ACCA enhancements. Neither the Legislature nor District Attorneys, whose mission is supposed to be the pursuit of justice, should stand for this systemic denial of people’s constitutional rights to their defense and to trial.

How ACCA disproportionately harms residents of color

The report notes that Black and Latine defendants make up over 75% of Massachusetts ACCA cases, despite making up less than 20% of the population. Moreover, ACCA cases are overwhelmingly charged in urban areas, with the Boston Police and State Police alone charging nearly half of ACCA cases during the time period analyzed, with the overwhelming majority of cases involving Black and Latine individuals.

More specifically, ACCA’s predicate drug offenses mean that people of color are disproportionately affected because, as noted in the report, laws criminalizing possession and distribution of drugs disproportionately target people of color. Police and prosecutors are more likely to charge residents of color with serious drug offenses because of overpolicing in their neighborhoods and prosecutorial discretion, respectively. ACCA exacerbates these inequities by using these charges to justify overly harsh punishments.

Similarly, stop-and-frisk policies and so-called hot-spot policing practices have meant that police disproportionately charge residents of color with gun possession charges that trigger ACCA.

And this disproportionality in charging residents of color with gun crimes as compared to white residents is even wider than that involving drug crimes.

Finally, the report notes that documented discrepancies also exist in charging decisions between white defendants and Black and Latine defendants. Prosecutors tend to charge Black and Latine individuals with more severe crimes than their white counterparts for the same or similar conduct, which leads to harsher punishment, including possible ACCA enhancements. The answer, however, is not to increase punishments for white individuals, but rather to decrease unwarranted and severe punishments for all criminal defendants.

Recommendations for action

Given the documented harm caused by ACCA punishment enhancements, the report details several recommendations for action. A few that stand out are:

• The Legislature should eliminate ACCA. At the very least, it should start by modifying ACCA to enhance punishment only for individuals with three predicate offenses and removing drug offenses and charges of simple weapon possession as qualifying offenses.

• The Legislature should prevent juvenile adjudications from counting as ACCA predicates.

• Prosecutors should stop widespread use of ACCA charges and instate policies for its use only under limited circumstances.

The Legislature and District Attorneys’ offices should act expeditiously to ameliorate the harm that ACCA punishments have caused to entire communities.