By Joe Luppino-Esposito | Due Process Institute | Director, Rule of Law Initiatives
Standing in the Oval Office in December, I was happy, but a little apprehensive. Yes, I was flanking the Resolute Desk as President Trump signed the First Step Act, the culmination of years of work on important federal criminal justice reform. But prior to that, other advocates and I had been waiting in the West Wing as the President and legislators were making a last-ditch effort to avoid a government shutdown. Was the First Step Act really going to work amidst all of DC’s turmoil?
After only a few months, we know the answer is yes. The First Step Act, the most comprehensive sentencing and corrections reform to pass into law in almost a decade, is already making a very real difference in the lives of Americans and their families. Although it represents only modest reform, already over 1,000 federal prisoners have been resentenced under the law, and those prisoners had their sentences reduced by a mean of 73 months—29.4 percent. This is a significant amount of time that these individuals have reclaimed instead of spending behind prison walls. According to reports, the beneficiaries have been predominantly African-American, due in large part to the retroactive application of the Fair Sentencing Act, which reduced the crack and powder cocaine sentencing disparity—a significant cause of racial disparity in incarceration rates.
In addition to these resentences, several persons have already been freed. Matthew Charles. Anthony Swatzie. Jeffrey Stringer. These are the first to leaveprison behind them thanks to the First Step Act, but they will not be the last. Even more people will benefit from the earned time credits system.
While the passage of this bill has already led to meaningful gains, this is Washington, so the process has not been without hiccups. The establishment of the commission tasked with creating the risk and needs assessment was created after the mandated deadline (blaming the delay on the shutdown). Some have been critical of the choice of the organization tasked with running the important Independent Review Committee, although the result of that selection remains to be seen. Any implementation of the risk and needs assessment may be hamstrung because there is still no permanent director of the Bureau of Prisons. And the application of one critical piece of the bill—awarding more good time credits for good behavior while incarcerated—has been unfortunately delayed because of an unfortunate interpretation of the provision, which is not how it was meant to be applied by its drafters.
Yet even that last problem will be resolved soon. I spoke to an attorney whose client is eligible for those good time credits and learned that the Bureau of Prisons has guaranteed that by the law’s deadline, July 19, his client’s new release date will be calculated. This appears to be the case for all prisoners who are eligible for immediate and near-term release. Even in a slow-moving bureaucracy, the momentum of reform can’t be stopped.
Earlier this month I had the honor to attend yet another White House-hosted event on reform, lest anyone think that the administration hasn’t fully embraced the cause. In his remarks, President Trump focused on the need to hire people who have served out their prison sentence and want to reenter society as productive, contributing members. In my opinion, there has never been a push for accomplishing criminal justice reform coming from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue more than there has been over the last year.
Those of us who work in Washington are cynical, and we ought to be—politics breeds that. But we shouldn’t be jaded, especially as we work towards realistic, achievable reforms that will increase public safety, lower recidivism rates, and better the lives of those who are ready to have a second chance, as they work to better the lives of all of those around them by rejoining our society as our family members, colleagues, neighbors, and friends.