Talk:Fair Sentencing Act

Reasons for, and vision of, the Fair Sentencing Act article

The Fair Sentencing Act is an important article because it has reduced a huge disparity in the severity of Federal criminal sentencing between two similar drugs, crack cocaine and powder cocaine. The act reflects an important change in the justice system in the United States. I hope for the article to expand in the following areas: background of the act, including the evolution of previous laws dealing with sentencing for the two drugs; key supporters (and the reasons for doing so) of the bill, including noteworthy Senators and/or House of Representatives members, as well as the Families Against Mandatory Minimums; criticism of the bill and the reasons behind it; and the aftermath of the act, which should become more evident throughout time considering how new the act is. Gsrogers (talk) 02:34, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Well done. You make an intriguing statement above: Can you discuss, in the article itself, who has said that the Act reflects an "important change in the justice system" in the United States? I agree with your ideas for expansion. We should also summarize more fully what the act actually provided. -- Ssilvers (talk) 16:00, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

The additional information added today is excellent, and I look forward to its further expansion. -- Ssilvers (talk) 03:54, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Assessment

UPDATE: The article is very close to C-class now, IMO, and a tiny bit more more on a couple of the following will push it over (this is not an exact science: some people might say that it has crossed over into C-class already). I still think it needs, as you say above, more discussion of "the evolution of previous laws dealing with sentencing for the two drugs". You name the previous acts now, but you don't say what they provided, and how they led to the shape of the final bill as passed. You don't need to go into detail about each of them, but you should explain when it was first seriously proposed that the 100:1 ratio should be changed and how the major proposals evolved. Also, perhaps there could be a little more about how and why the 2010 version changed as it moved towards adoption. The article now mentions the key supporters, but it could be discussed in more depth, and I still think there needs to be a little clarification as to what each person you name exactly did. You also mention above, "criticism of the bill and the reasons behind it". Could this still be expanded more? Is there anything new on the aftermath of the act? Have there been newspaper articles about the Act or other commentary about its genesis and impact? Best regards! -- Ssilvers (talk) 03:21, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

In following your helpful suggestions, I have started to include information on the first serious proposals to change the 100:1 ratio. It is currently under the "Proposal and passage of the bill" section of the article, but I'm not sure if that is the right place for that information. Perhaps the name of that section should be changed entirely? What do you think? Thanks! Gsrogers (talk) 02:30, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I upgraded the assessment to C-class and added a new heading; feel free to change it. As the article expands, the headings will likely continue to change. Keep up the great work! Try to be as specific as possible when you say that something was done: who did it? When? Why? What happened? Also, now that the article has more information in it, the introduction needs to be expanded to give an overview of the whole article. See WP:LEAD. -- Ssilvers (talk) 03:28, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Assessment

Hey. Your article looks really good. I'm not sure about why there's a bot that stated that your introduction section may not adequately summarize it's content but you might want to take a few details from the background and insert it into the lead section. You might also want to add the "See also" section KC suggested to refer to similar articles. SoAuthentic(talk)

Not a bot, a living, breathing human. See WP:LEAD. As the article grows, the major information from the body must be summarized in the lead. -- Ssilvers (talk) 18:22, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Changes from December 5 and 6, 2010

Someone add a lot of unreferenced information to this article over the past two days. It is possibly WP:OR, and some of it seems to be WP:POV, and must be deleted unless it is referenced, as it throws doubt on the reliability of the whole article. I am guessing that most of it *can* be referenced, if someone wants to work on it. In addition, the new references that were added are incomplete, missing info on the author, publisher and date of publication. If references cannot be found for the new information, it would be better to just delete it. I added various hidden comments to the edit screen to try to indicate where work is needed. All the best! -- Ssilvers (talk) 19:43, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

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