Two of the nation’s biggest law enforcement groups on called on President Trump to reject a congressional “sentencing reform” plan for federal prisons that they say will put violent drug dealers on the streets where they will have to arrest them again.
“Sheriffs will have to arrest most of them again at the county level and that will shift the cost and responsibility to us without fixing the underlying problems of violent crime and drug and human trafficking in the country,” said a letter to Trump from the National Sheriffs’ Association.
“At a time when our nation is being ravaged by an epidemic of overdoses from the use of heroin and opioids, it seems at variance with common sense and sound policy to drastically reduce sentences for drug traffickers and then apply these reduced sentences retroactively,” said the National Fraternal Order of Police.
FOP President Chuck Canterbury added in his letter to Trump, “This same troubling approach was taken by the previous administration and thousands of offenders benefitted from early release without any consideration to the impact on public safety. We cannot explain why proponents of this bill seek to repeat this same error.”
The proposal from Iowa Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley and Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin was attacked earlier this week by Attorney General Jeff Sessions who has worked for years to keep offenders in jail and has long opposed “sentencing reform.”
Reformers claim that their goal is to release non-violent offenders from crowded jails.
The legislation, which failed to pass last year, cuts mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent offenders. And it would end the three strikes rule that calls for repeat offenders to be sentenced to life in prison.
The administration has been friendly to law enforcement and the two letters back up Sessions and his team’s law and order effort.
The sheriffs met with Trump this week during their legislative meeting in Washington. In their letter, association President Harold Eavenson, sheriff of Rockwall County, Texas, and Executive Director Jonathan F. Thompson, warned that the Grassley-Durbin legislation would allow dangerous criminal felons out too early.
“We ask your help in keeping these criminals in federal prison and finding solutions to sentencing challenges that doesn’t put our citizens at risk,” the duo wrote. Their letter is below.
Canterbury rejected the idea that drug offenses are “non-violent.” He wrote, “this is a pernicious myth. Drug trafficking is inherently violent, causing addition and death among users and exacting a terrible toll on their families and communities.” His letter is below also.
Sheriffs letter:
FOP letter:
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
