Tag Archives: Prison Reform and Redemption Act

The Thrillah on the Hill-ah – Update for May 14, 2018

May 14, 2018 lisa-legalinfo Leave a comment

We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

HOUSE BILL MAY FALL VICTIM TO SENATE DEMAND THAT IT DO MORE

With the House Judiciary Committee last week rewriting the old Prison Redemption and the Reform Act into the new FIRST STEP Act (H.R. 5682), the action on criminal justice reform turns to the Senate, where FIRST STEP is already running into pushback. Let’s get ready to rumble.

The White House-backed bill picked up some mo after the House Judiciary Committee passed it onto the floor with a bipartisan 15-5 vote. But some Senate are deadlocked about how to approach the bill, threatening the chances of it getting signed into law. Ironically, the senators raising the most opposition are supporters – not opponents – of criminal justice reform. In fact, some of the traditional foes of criminal justice reform, conservative groups, sound like unabashed supporters. And those who you’d think were most likely to support reform are opposing it.

“Although today’s vote is a positive sign, we still have a long way to go. As the bill’s title suggests, this is the first step,” said conservative nonprofit FreedomWorks. “Congress must do more to ensure that those who are re-entering society and want a better life for themselves and their families have meaningful opportunities to work toward that goal. Another part of the discussion is sentencing reform. Sooner or later, Congress will have to revisit this issue to ensure that we are reforming sentences for low-level, nonviolent offenders and reserving limited prison space for violent offenders.”

But Kate Gotsch of the Sentencing Project complains that the bill does not account for the fact that halfway houses likely won’t have space to accommodate the inmates who accrue more earned-time credit. Progressive groups also point out that while the legislation encourages – even rewards – prisoners for participation in rehabilitative programs, the Bureau of Prisons is struggling with a horrifically-long wait list for the programs it currently offers. And many facilities don’t have the staff to run additional programs. Much of BOP Director Mark Inch’s grilling by the House Oversight Committee last month came over severe cuts in halfway house time for inmates and for the BOP’s practice of “augmentation,” where teachers, nurses and other professional staff at federal prisons are required to drop their regular duties to fill shifts for correctional officers in the housing units.

Nevertheless, FIRST STEP co-sponsor, Rep. Hakeen Jeffries (D-N.Y.) predicted last Friday the bill would come up for a House vote by the end of May.

Sens. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Richard Durbin (D-Illinois), the No. 2 Senate Democrat, both want a broader criminal justice measure including the mandatory minimum sentencing reforms they previously tucked into the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act, S.1917, which passed out of the Judiciary Committee last February. The SRCA, which picked up two more co-sponsors last week, is now sponsored by 14 Democrats and 13 Republicans. It slashes mandatory minimums for drug offenses, makes the Fair Sentencing Act retroactive for inmates with pre-2010 crack sentences, and brings relief to people with stacked 924(c) convictions.

Despite White House opposition, spearheaded by Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, both senators say they’ve made a deal to not split prison reform from changes to sentencing guidelines. But The Hill predicted last weekend that combining sentencing reform with prison reform will “all but kill any chance of getting sentencing reform through the GOP-controlled Congress.

Grassley’s and Durbin’s approach is poison to both to Sessions and to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), who refused to bring SRCA to a vote in the last session of Congress despite sponsorship of 40” senators. And some of the bill’s most vocal opponents, Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) and David Perdue (R-Georgia), are some of Trump’s closest allies on Capitol Hill.

Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) last week introduced a companion bill to the House’s FIRST STEP Act. S. 2795, a bill to provide for programs to help reduce the risk that prisoners will recidivate upon release from prison, represents an effort by some in the Senate to press forward with a narrower bill that would match FIRST STEP. Asked if Sens. Grassley’s and Durbin’s stance was realistic, Cornyn said, “Their opinion matters, but I wouldn’t say that’s the end of the discussion.”

House Republicans already have made some changes to their prison reform bill in an attempt to win the support needed for it to pass that chamber, but the modifications did not placate Grassley or Durbin, whose support would likely be critical if any legislation is to reach the Senate floor.

In a show of strength, Sen. Cornyn and White House advisor and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner were to tour FCI Seagoville in suburban Dallas last Friday, to tout FIRST STEP. Sen. Cornyn made it, but Kushner skipped out.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina), while saying he’s open to either path forward on the issue, is skeptical that a prison reform bill alone would be able to get the 60 votes needed to ultimately clear the Senate. “It’s how we get the votes, and I’m not sure how you do [it with just that]. The way that that evolved was by talking about pairing the two,” he said, referring to both sentence reform and prison reform.

Sen. Grassley appears to be closing the door for now on negotiating with Cornyn. He said he and Durbin are pushing forward with their bill, adding that he’s delivered that message to Kushner several times. “[We’re going] to try to convince the White House that we’re right,” he said. “This is a wonderful opportunity for the president to have a bipartisan victory and to sign it, and that’s exactly what he needs for the midterm election.”

S. 2795: A bill to provide for programs to help reduce the risk that prisoners will recidivate upon release from prison, and for other purposes, Introduced May 7, 2018, by Sens. Cornyn and Whitehouse.

FreedomWorks, FreedomWorks Applauds Important “First Step” In Criminal Justice Reform (May 9, 2018)

The Hill, Trump-backed prison reforms face major obstacles in Senate (May 13, 2018)

Roll Call, Criminal justice overhaul efforts appear stuck (May 11, 2018)

Mother Jones, Jared Kushner’s Prison reform Bill Just got Slightly Less Bad (May 7, 2018)

– Thomas L. Root

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New Delay on Prison Reform Committee Vote May Jeopardize Passage – Update for April 30, 2018

April 30, 2018 lisa-legalinfo Leave a comment

We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

HOUSE MARKUP OF PRISON REFORM BILL DELAYED AGAIN

Disagreements over provisions in the Prison Reform and Redemption Act, H.R. 3356, backed by the White House, forced House Judiciary Chairman Robert Goodlatte (R-Virginia) to postpone markup of the bill previously scheduled for last Wednesday, and called into question the future of any type of criminal justice reform.

“We will consider the prison reform bill at the next mark-up of the Committee, which will occur the week of May 7th,” Goodlatte said. “I look forward to considering it then.”

The PRRA, co-sponsored by Reps. Doug Collins (R-Georgia.) and Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York), rewards inmates’ completion of programs like drug treatment, adult education classes and vocational training with additional halfway house and home confinement. Any sentencing reform – such as change in mandatory minimums and retroactivity of the Fair Sentencing Act – was left out because of White House and Justice Department pressure.

The Hill reported that House Judiciary Democrats are battling with some Committee Republicans over PRRA provisions that restrict the kinds of programs offered and the kinds of convictions that will be excluded from benefits. Multiple House sources, however, blamed the delay not on House negotiations but instead on a behind-the-scenes opposition campaign from two Senate heavyweights, one from each party.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) reportedly told House Judiciary panel members to oppose the PRRA unless it adds the sentencing overhaul contained in the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act, S.1917, which they co-sponsor and which was reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee two months ago.

The Trump administration wants to see a prison-only bill, not the broader SRCA, but that’s not stopping Grassley and Durbin from what one Republican complained was meddling in the House debate. “Frankly, I respect the two senators, but they have enough problems in the Senate,” said Rep. Doug Collins (R-Georgia), one of the PRRA’s authors. “I wish they would actually focus on passing bills over there.”

The PRRA also has been criticized by civil and human rights groups, who have long focused their fight for criminal justice reform on measures that reduce mandatory minimum prison sentences. More than 60 police chiefs and prosecutors wrote to Congress and the White House last week, urging that the PRRA be amended to include mandatory minimums reform. The group, called Law Enforcement Leaders to Reduce Crime and Incarceration is concerned that the PRRA doesn’t address sentencing.

“Improving prison conditions and reentry services, on their own, will not adequately solve our high rates of incarceration and recidivism,” the letter says. “Legislation like the Prison Reform and Redemption Act (H.R.3356) and the CORRECTIONS Act (S. 1994) are useful efforts to improve the lives of those in prison. But such efforts should be coupled with efforts to reduce unnecessary incarceration.”

Last Friday, leaders of faith-based groups met at the White House to voice their support for the PRRA. The Prison Fellowship, one of the participants, sees demands for sentencing reform as a needless distraction: “The delay in voting on the Prison Reform and Redemption Act in the House of Representatives is a disappointment to Prison Fellowship and the hundreds of thousands of prisoners and families we serve in our programs,” Craig DeRoche, Senior Vice President, Advocacy and Public Policy, said. “There is no disagreement about what is in the bill, the fight is over what has not been put in this legislation—and the people who pay the price for these delays are the men and women that are incarcerated today. Delaying, or even killing these important reforms disregards the hope, dignity, value and potential of the people incarcerated today and will only serve the practical outcome of making America less safe by continuing the current recidivism rate.”

Despite the delay, Rep. Jeffries said he’s confident of a bipartisan agreement soon, and that the bill will pass in May.

The Hill, House Judiciary delays markup of prison reform bill (Apr. 25, 2018)

Politico, Kushner-backed prison reform bill stumbles in House (Apr. 25, 2018)

– Thomas L. Root

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Prison Reform Gets a Hearing – Update for April 16, 2018

April 16, 2018 lisa-legalinfo Leave a comment

We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

HOUSE PRISON REFORM BILL GOES TO HEARING THIS WEEK

The House Judiciary Committee will mark up H.R. 3566, the Prison Reform and Redemption Act, this week, a Republican proposal that aims to reduce recidivism. Rep. Doug Collins (R-Georgia), sponsor of the PRRA, said the bill, which has 10 Democrat and seven Republican co-sponsors, would allow prisoners to serve the final days of their sentences in a halfway house or home confinement if they complete evidence-based programs that have been shown to reduce recidivism rates.

Prison programming could include everything from job and vocational skills training to education and drug treatment.

The White House announced in February it was throwing its support behind prison reform measures such as the PRRA instead of measures like the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act, sponsored by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa). The White House says it sees no path forward for sentencing reform. “And so what we see now is an environment where the prison reform does have enough support to get done,” an official said. “And we think that by maybe doing this in smaller bits and pushing the prison reform now, we think this has a better chance of getting done.”

Not everyone agrees. The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights an umbrella group of 63 organizations, wrote to the House Judiciary Committee last week to complain about the PRRA and “efforts to pass prison reform (or ‘back-end’ reform) legislation without including sentencing reform (or ‘front-end’ reform).” The Conference said that any “legislation that addresses only back end reforms is doomed to fail in achieving these goals. Without changes to sentencing laws that eliminate mandatory minimums, restore judicial discretion, reduce the national prison population, and mitigate disparate impacts on communities of color, H.R. 3356 alone will have little impact.”

The PRRA lets inmates earn credits for completing designated BOP programs that will let them go to halfway house or home confinement early, with the more credits earned, the earlier the prisoner can get released to residential reentry. But the Conference letter noted that “currently there are not enough of these programs available in the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to serve those currently in prisons. Furthermore, BOP more recently has reduced the number of residential reentry centers it contracts with to provide halfway house programming.”

And the leadership of two organizations on the opposite end of the political spectrum, conservative FreedomWorks and liberal Center for American Progress, wrote in The Hill last week that “[a] recent markup of the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act yielded the same favorable vote as the last committee vote on this legislation, and even those who voted against the legislation voiced support for some level of sentencing reform. Sen. Lee maintains that SRCA would receive 70 votes on the Senate floor, if Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) would simply allow the bill to come to a vote.”

Trump son-in-law and advisor Jared Kushner convinced President Trump to support prison reforms like those some states have implemented more than a decade ago, which since saved billions and has resulted both in the closure of prisons and a drastic reduction the crime rate. Jared presented those ideas to Trump at a White House meeting in January. The following month, the White House asked lawmakers to draw up legislation, highlighting many of the same policies.

Kushner has since worked with Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a long-time criminal justice reform advocate, who helped craft the plan the House will begin debating this week.

Meanwhile, speculation that Trump may fire Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III – the man who torpedoed the SRCA and has backed off Obama-era easing of DOJ charging policies – has cooled. The Weekly Standard reported his week that such a firing is highly unlikely. Instead, Sessions has a stronger hold on his job than ever.

With Sessions gone, it would be difficult for Grassley to avoid spending the rest of the year on anything but hearings for a new AG. With the risk growing daily that the Democrats may capture the Senate in the midterm elections in November, the chance to confirm more conservative judges would have been frittered away.

Still, The Standard reports that anti-Sessions sentiment lives on in the Trump family. Jared Kushner is a supporter of criminal justice reform, which Sessions opposes. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, who openly lobbied to replace Sessions and angered the President in the process, was Kushner’s hope for attorney general and possible backer of SRCA. Pruitt is hanging on to his EPA job by a thread, and has probably permanently spindled any hope of becoming Attorney General.

The Hill, Prison reform bill set for House markup next week (Apr. 11, 2018)

McClatchy Washington Bureau, Washington looks to Texas on federal prison reforms (Apr. 13, 2018)

The Leadership, Letter of Concern regarding H.R. 3356, the Prison Reform and Redemption Act (Apr. 12, 2018)

The Weekly Standard, Jeff Sessions and His Enemies (Apr. 13, 2018)

– Thomas L. Root

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Sentencing Reform Taking It On The Chin – Update for April 11, 2018

April 11, 2018 lisa-legalinfo Leave a comment

We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

SENTENCING REFORM IS DEAD… LONG LIVE PRISON REFORM

A couple of hagiographic news articles on Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner’s efforts pushing federal criminal justice reform last week make it clear, if it was not clear before, that hopes of sentencing reform – rewriting mandatory minimums and giving guys with grossly-stacked sentences a chance to get resentenced to something that make sense – are waning.

Notwithstanding Sen. Charles Grassley’s (R-Iowa) optimism, prospects for the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2017, are bleak, with Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III leading Administration opposition to the notion of front-end sentencing reform.

So, if traditional sentencing reform is dead in the water, The Hill asked last week, what’s left? Prison reform legislation that focuses on reentry programs offering prisoners the opportunity to shorten their sentences on the back end is what’s being favored now. Rather than trimming sentences from the start, these programs allow prisoners to earn credits toward early release by participating in programs intended to help reintegrate them into society and reduce their propensity to reoffend. Although they face some of the same political resistance as front-end sentencing reductions, it is significantly easier to overcome.

The Hill argued that prison reform bills “avoid many of the usual pitfalls that sentencing reform legislation encounters because they shift the narrative from one of retribution to redemption, from past wrong to future promise. Instead of getting bogged down on issues like whom to punish and for how long, politicians are able to talk about what comes next. Leaving the nominal sentence unchanged insulates these reforms from charges that they don’t adequately reflect the egregiousness of a given crime or that they will negatively impact deterrence.”

The Las Vegas Review-Journal suggested last week that anything criminal justice advocates may get from Congress this year will be due to Kushner, whose father did a bit a decade ago for some white-collar and tax beefs. Sentencing reform failed last year despite Obama’s willingness to sign it, and after law-and-order Trump was elected, it looked like any reform would not happen.

But Kushner convinced Trump to support prison reform (not sentencing reform), changes that would “create a prison system that will rehabilitate citizens who have made mistakes, paid the price and are deserving of a second chance — which will ultimately reduce crime and save taxpayer dollars.”

In practical terms, Kushner has helped in two ways. First, his commitment tells Hill Republicans that Trump is not likely to reverse his support for prison reform. Second, Kushner found a way to co-opt Sessions, by convincing advocates to delay their push for sentencing reform in exchange for Sessions not standing in the way of their rehabilitation goals. As a result, DOJ now “is working closely with the White House to develop legislative reforms that further the president’s goals for prison and re-entry improvements,” said spokesman Drew Hudson.

The lead horse in the prison reform race is the Prison Reform and Redemption Act, sponsored by Rep. Doug Collins, R-Georgia, that would require prisons to assess inmates’ recidivism risk, encourage drug treatment and offer incentives for inmates to participate in recidivism reduction programs.

Collins said his bill would create “a federal prison-wide system for evaluating the risk of every individual prisoner for re-offending and then offering evidence-based resources — like mental health care, vocational skills, substance abuse treatment and faith-based programs — that make them less likely to re-offend when they are released.”

Las Vegas Review-Journal, For Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, prison reform is personal (April 7, 2018)

ABC, Inside Jared Kushner’s personal crusade to reform America’s prisons (April 8, 2018)

The Hill, Incentivized early release the right path to sentencing reform under Trump-Sessions (April 6, 2018)

– Thomas L. Root

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President Throws His Weight (Sort of) Behind Prison Reform – Update for February 5, 2018

February 5, 2018 lisa-legalinfo Leave a comment

We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

TRUMP BACKS PRISON (NOT SENTENCING) REFORM

During his State of the Union address last Tuesday, President Trump said his administration will pursue reforms to federal prison system reentry programs. “As America regains its strength, this opportunity must be extended to all citizens,” Trump said. “That is why this year we will embark on reforming our prisons to help former inmates who have served their time get a second chance.”

Trump brought up prison reform again last Thursday in a speech to GOP legislators during their retreat in West Virginia. “We can reform our prison system to help those who have served their time get a second chance at life,” he told the lawmakers.

A sharp split remains in Congress over sentencing reform, but there seems to be a consensus on prison reform. The difference between the two is this: sentencing reform focuses on reducing potential sentences – including mandatory minimums – while prison reform offers more reentry programs in prison, for which prisoners could get up extra days off for completing approved programs.

Trump’s comments are a change in tone for the President, who made tough-on-crime talk a standard of his 2016 presidential campaign. But even as he embraces prison reform, Trump suggests his Administration might seek tougher drug laws in response to the opioid crisis.

Supporters of reform are expressing cautious optimism that a deal can be made to improve conditions in federal prisons, bolster anti-recidivism efforts and allow federal prisoners to earn “time credits” for making it through education or other programs, despite legislative clashes over immigration and opioids and the impending midterm elections. Rep. Doug Collins (R-Georgia), an author of the bipartisan Prison Reform and Redemption Act (H.R. 3356), called the moment of apparent consensus “a unique opportunity.”

Ohio State University law prof and sentencing expert Doug Berman wrote last week that while “‘back-end’ prison reforms to facilitate earlier release from prison for all federal offenders and enhanced reentry efforts are quite possible and may truly be a priority for the Trump Administration; it would also seem that “front-end” sentencing reforms to reduce mandatory minimum terms for drug trafficking offenses many not be possible and may be actively opposed by the Trump Administration.”

The New Republic said that “reducing mandatory minimums and over-criminalization will be a tough sell, while programs to help prisoners re-enter society and find jobs could find a receptive audience in the White House.” However, the Administration cut back on BOP education programs last May, and further BOP job cuts may make it hard for the agency to find enough people to direct rehabilitation programs. Fewer staff means fewer programs means fewer qualified courses means fewer additional good-time credits. The New Republic said, “It would be a Nixon-in-China moment if Trump genuinely tried to combat mass incarceration—which is to say, it’s highly unlikely.”

Yet less than a week later, the same author in the same magazine suggested that “Trump’s rhetoric of late gives hope for bipartisan efforts in Congress to push through a criminal-justice reform bill this year. While Trump prides himself as a master dealmaker, he’s been content to let Republican lawmakers and his top advisers sketch the details of major legislation on health care, tax reform, and immigration. As long as he’s not actively hostile to whatever lawmakers send him, reformers could find Trump more amenable to the final package if they can convince him it’s a win.”