As the debate on criminal-justice reform continues to swing in the direction of sensible reforms, new legislation introduced in Congress Thursday continued the trend. Two big justice-reform bills offered in the House and Senate signaled that the "tough on crime" era of bad policy (which may have polled well for Election Day, but filled jails) may finally be over.
It's about time. After four decades of bad federal and state policy, notably the Rockefeller Drug Laws of the 1970s and the 1994 Clinton crime bill that helped make the U.S. No. 1 in the world in incarceration, the tide is turning. Lawmakers are finally pointing in the right direction. Several are the same ones who voted for the very policies they must now work to undo (looking at you, Sen. Chuck Schumer [D-N.Y.]).
"My friend @repjohnconyers, I support sweeping reform in#SafeJusticeAct. We need big solutions to big problems. Counting on ur leadership," tweeted music mogul and businessman Russell Simmons Thursday as many in the justice-reform community considered the moment.
This moment follows what started back in June when House Reps. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) and Bobby Scott (D-Va.) introduced a comprehensive justice bill, the SAFE Justice Act, after a House Overcriminalization Task Force heard testimony on all aspects of the justice system. The bill narrows the use of mandatory-minimum penalties, targeting them away from low-level nonviolent drug defendants, and supports drug and mental-health courts. It also would appropriate money for body cameras and police training. The legislation now has 50 co-sponsors, 25 Republicans and 25 Democrats, the most of any justice bill in Congress.
On Thursday a group of 10 senators, five Republicans and five Democrats offered a justice bill that creates new solitary-confinement restrictions for juveniles in the federal system and offers parole for defendants who committed crimes as minors. The Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act blends a bill by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) with elements of the Second Chance Act by Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill.) and the REDEEM Act by Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.).
Because there was a tug of war between reform-minded senators and mandatory-minimum fans Cornyn, Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), there are two new mandatory-minimum penalties in the legislation even though the racially biased penalty that prosecutors love is the main reason for overincarceration in the U.S.
The new mandatory penalties indicate that Grassley, a nonlawyer who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is stuck in 1986. A full read of the legislation indicates that senators couldn't decide whether they wanted to go hard in one direction or the other. As Antonio Ginatta wrote this week for Human Rights Watch about the new bill:
Currently, if you commit a serious federal drug offense and have two prior drug felonies on your record, prosecutors can seek a mandatory-minimum life sentence. Under this new Senate bill, that minimum would shrink to 25 years. How it expands: Under the bill, it wouldn't just be drug felonies that could enhance a sentence—it could be other felonies as well.
The good news in the Senate bill is that it makes retroactive the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, which brought the racially biased crack-powder-cocaine penalties closer. It requires presentencing information to include history of addiction and provides that nonviolent juveniles tried in federal courts can have their records expunged or sealed.
In the coming years, it will be interesting to see if older members of Congress, who seemingly have an obsession with failed mandatory-minimum policies, will be overtaken by younger members, who are increasingly opposed to them.
Comprehensive justice legislation has yet to be offered by House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), who has been passive-aggressively blocking reform efforts behind the scenes.
"We are hopeful that the Senate Judiciary's actions will prompt Chairman Goodlatte and the House Judiciary to act on these critically important issues," wrote Koch Brothers Senior Vice President Mark Holden in a statement after the Senate bill was announced.
Only time will tell.
Link to original article from The Root
Imagine going to the polls on Election Day and discovering that your ballot could be collected and reviewed by the
ACLU Blueprints Offer Vision to Cut US Incarceration Rate in Half by Prioritizing 'People Over Prisons' 
"These disasters drag into the light exactly who is already being thrown away," notes Naomi Klein 
How about some good news? Kansas Democratic Representative advances bill for Native Peoples. 
What mattered was that he showed up — that he put himself in front of the people whose opinions on
On a night of Democratic victories, one of the most significant wins came in Virginia, where the party held onto
A seismic political battle that could send shockwaves all the way to the White House was launched last week in
In an interview with Reuters conducted a month after he took office, Donald Trump asserted that the U.S. had “fallen
Attorney General Jeff Sessions overturned the sweeping criminal charging policy of former attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr. and directed
The news that the White House and Republican congressional leaders have given up on passing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is
If you read the headlines, Donald Trump’s election has killed the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The headlines have it wrong. 
Democratic senator from Massachusetts offers fresh criticism of trade deal in new video 
Today’s World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling against the U.S. country-of-origin meat labels (COOL) that consumers rely on to make informed
Negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership—a trade agreement between 12 nations—ended earlier this week. The likely passage of the agreement means
'For thousands of women to die unnecessary of breast cancer because of the TPP is a horrible, cruel, premeditated, and
A razor-thin Senate vote Tuesday put President Obama on the cusp of claiming victory for his ambitious international trade agenda,
The Fast Track trade authority package was rejected Friday because two years of effort by a vast corporate coalition, the
It just doesn't get more cynical than this. Note that we're talking about a bipartisan trade deal, thanks to 14