Criminal justice reform bill passed by Senate in rare bipartisan victory
Source: Guardian
First Step Act, a landmark bill which would reduce drug crime sentences, saw support from both progressives and law-and-order conservatives.
A sweeping bill seeking to reform the criminal justice system has cleared the Senate, in a legislative victory for both progressive advocates and law-and-order conservatives that would give judges more discretion when sentencing some drug offenders and would boost prisoner rehabilitation efforts.
The First Step Act, which passed 87-12, attracted support from both sides of the aisle, as well as from public figures such as Patricia Arquette, Mark Cuban, Kim Kardashian West and Kanye West. Donald Trump supported the iteration of the bill that passed in the House in May, and the most current version that will need to return to the House for another vote (which it is expected to pass), before it reaches his desk for a signature later this week.
The sweeping bill addresses concerns that the nation’s war on drugs had led to the imprisonment of too many Americans for non-violent crimes without adequately preparing them for their return to society.
The act would reduce mandatory minimum sentences for a number of drug-related crimes, allow judges to circumvent federal mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent offenders when they see fit, expand rehabilitative opportunities for federal prisoners, and ban some correctional practices criticized as inhumane, such as the shackling of pregnant women. The act would give elderly and terminally ill inmates a path home and invest tens of millions in re-entry programming.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/18/first-step-act-criminal-justice-reform-passes-senate
This is a very good thing.
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