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We Endorse the Safer Supervision Act
November 6, 2025–Supervised release is a period of government supervision that begins after aperson finishes serving a federal prison sentence. Unfortunately, the program’s current operation is causing unnecessary economic friction. Technical, non-criminal violations are pushing otherwise employable adults out of the workforce at a time when job openings exceed available workers, and probation officers are spending disproportionate time managing low-risk cases that divert attention from individuals who actually require closer oversight. This misallocation drives administrative costs, slows reentry, and undermines family and employment stability. Although supervised release was designed as a tool for judges to use at their discretion, its use has become routine. According to the Congressional Research Service, terms of supervised release are imposed in 90.1 percent of cases. There is a better way than the current approach to supervised release.
Introduced by Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT), Chris Coons (D-DE), Roger Wicker (R-MS), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Thom Tillis (R-NC), and James Lankford (R-OK) in the Senate and Reps. Laurel Lee (R-FL), Mark Harris (R-NC), Zachary Nunn (R-IA), Barry Moore (R-AL), Deborah Ross (D-NC), Lucy McBath (D-GA), Burgess Owens (R-UT), and Don Bacon (R-NE) in the House, the Safer Supervision Act, S. 3077 and H.R. 5883, realigns incentives by rewarding compliance, escalating intervention proportionally, and reducing churn because of technical violations that produces no measurable public-safety gain.
The Safer Supervision Act requires sentencing courts to conduct an individualized assessment to determine whether a term of supervised release is necessary or appropriate. The bill creates a presumption of early termination of supervised release for individuals who have completed at least 50 percent of their term if they have abided by the conditions the court imposed. Importantly, individuals must show that termination of supervised release will not jeopardize public safety. The court may appoint counsel, such as a federal public defender, for the individual seeking termination of supervised release or modification of the terms of their release. The prosecuting U.S. Attorney may contest the early termination, although the individual seeking early termination will have the opportunity to rebut. Crime victims’ rights also apply when the court considers the request for termination.
Consistent with a May 2025 directive from the Federal Bureau of Prisons to maximize the use of home confinement, the bill clarifies that earned time credits may be used to serve the remainder of a sentence outside of prison even if a term of supervised release was not originally imposed. This avoids artificially expanding supervision rolls simply to facilitate release pathways, preserves judicial discretion, and aligns with existing Bureau of Prisons guidance. These adjustments keep employer-ready individuals in the labor market rather than returning them to costly custody placements without a public-safety justification.
Due Process Institute supports the Safer Supervision Act and urges senators and representatives to co-sponsor and support this bipartisan, bicameral legislation. The Safer Supervision Act strikes the right balance: it protects the public, prioritizes officer attention on higher-risk individuals, supports rehabilitation, and preserves taxpayer dollars. These reforms are modest, bipartisan, evidence-based, and overdue.
DPI Submits Comments to US Sentencing Commission on Supervised Release and Drug Sentencing
March 3, 2025–Due Process Institute submitted comment on the Commission’s January 2025 proposed amendments relating to Supervised Release and Drug Offenses. In the comment, we expressed unequivocally support for the recent proposals directing courts to base supervised release decisions on individualized assessments and removing recommended minimum terms of supervised release. Originally designed to be limited in use and only when necessary to preserve public safety, supervised release is unfortunately imposed in almost every single federal case. This has led to a bloated and burdened system, putting strain on actors in the criminal legal system as well as on citizens returning to their communities after completing their terms of sentence. The overuse of long periods of supervised release has created a number of undesirable consequences—probation officers are too overwhelmed to effectively supervise high-risk cases, low-risk defendants are unnecessarily recidivating under unnecessarily onerous burdens, and this broken system is costing American taxpayers $500 million annually.
In response to the Commission’s request for fine attunement of its proposals, Due Process Institute suggested the Commission consider strengthening its guidance towards courts by characterizing the early termination of supervised release as a rebuttable presumption, rather than merely a modification that “may” occur. This revision would ensure a much-needed course correction for our overburdened system, would more directly provide incentives for people reentering society on supervised release, and would free up resources for probation officers so that they could better focus on cases with serious public safety implications.
Due Process Institute also commended the Commission for seeking public comment on whether the Commission should reconsider the disparity between cocaine (“powder cocaine”) and cocaine base (“crack cocaine”) in the Drug Quantity Table at §2D1.1(c). Currently, the Drug Quantity Table reflects an 18-to-1 ratio between crack cocaine and powder cocaine. Due Process Institute strongly encouraged the Commission to reconsider this disparity in a future amendment cycle.
The current disparity exists because of a well-intentioned but un-scientific overreaction to crack cocaine abuse in the 1980s. This initially led to crack cocaine being arbitrarily treated 100 times worse than powder cocaine in our federal sentencing laws, despite the fact that crack cocaine and powdered cocaine are pharmacologically the same. The primary differences between the drugs are that crack cocaine is cheaper and easier to access, particularly in poor communities that are already marginalized, and in the way the substances are typically ingested. The manner in which crack cocaine is ingested is, as the Commission has noted, “not a reliable basis for establishing longer penalties.”
However, the 18-to-1 ratio currently reflected in the Drug Quantity Table still does not reflect sound policy. There is no scientific basis for treating crack cocaine offenses more harshly than powder cocaine offenses. And there is no cultural or social impetus for the overly harsh treatment. In fact, the number of defendants whose primary drug type is crack cocaine has steadily declined from 6,168 in FY 2008 to only 855 in FY 2023. And crack cocaine defendants as a percentage of all drug trafficking defendants have declined from 26.8 percent in FY 1996 to 4.6 percent in FY 2023. The time has come for the Commission to correct the existing unnecessary and unfair disparity between cocaine offenses in the Drug Quantity Table.