Criminal Justice Reform And What You Should Know About the Passing of the “First Step Act”

Last night, the Senate passed a sweeping Criminal Justice Reform Bill, titled the “First Step Act”. In a rare, bipartisan decision, the act was passed 87-12; supporters claim the bill passed by the Senate will make the justice system fairer, reduce overcrowding in federal prisons, and save taxpayers money. It will also benefit drug and non-violent offenders. Here are 10 things to know about the First Step Act:

1. 1. 1. This bill will not affect state prisons, it only affects prisoners in federal prisons; these prisoners only make up less than 10 percent for America’s prison population. However, the passing of this bill is a start to changing an extremely biases justice system.
      2. Passing the First Step Act includes the retroactive application of the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010. This law reduced racist powder and crack cocaine sentencing charges. The Legal Defense Fund has been fighting for this reform, and it is important that this has been included in the First Step Act.
      3. Sentences will be applied retroactively (Earned Time Credits) for many inmates who were sentenced with extreme time under these “crack laws”. Many individuals who have been sentenced to extreme time in prison, may be set to be released once the bill is passed. Currently, they have estimated 3,000 federal inmates serving time for crack cocaine offenses will have their time reduced.
      4. This bill also ends the practice of “Stacking” charges. Stacking drug charges would take drug offenses that happened prior to the conviction, which would make a person a multiple-offender for sentencing purposes- even though they were never previously convicted.
      5. The First Step Act, if passed, will order Federal prisons to stop shackling pregnant women while they are in labor, basically treating them humanely while they are giving birth to their babies.
      6. This act also allows judges to help out low-level offenders, with minimal criminal histories, who cooperate with the government in cases that don’t include violence. to possibly receive lower sentences than the mandatory minimums. This way they can get back into society faster and pay taxes, rather than be tax burdens.
      7. Our Federal governments has locked up people for decades without preparing them on how to properly enter society with the right tools; which leads to more crime. This bill would expand job-training for prisoners re-entering society, and it would require that these inmates be housed within 500 miles of their families when possible.
      8. It has been a slow, arduous, process in getting these modest reforms passed. This is a big picture of how difficult it becomes to get “bad laws” off the books once they have been established. Liberals are quick to label these as “anti-crime”, “anti-drug” – and people simply buy into the rhetoric, making it hard to fix “bad laws”.
      9. Although the bill contains modest changes, there are many who have doubts that this is a first step, many believe because of the difficulty of our government being able to work together, this may be the only step.https://twitter.com/sensanders/status/1075405630360428546?s=21
      10. These are the Senators that opposed and tried to sink the bill Sen. Tom Cotton (Ark-R), Barrasso (R), Enzi (R), Kennedy (R), Kyl (R), Murkowski (R), Risch (R), Rounds (R), Rubio (R), Ben Sasse (Neb-R), Shelby (R), Sullivan (R)

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