Congress is on the verge of a rare bipartisan accord to reform federal sentencing laws.
While Republicans and Democrats in the next weeks will be dueling over federal spending limits, a rare bipartisan Senate working group will likely introduce legislation aimed at melding prison reform with reductions in minimum sentencing laws.
According to Senate GOP aides, the bipartisan group “is very close to an agreement,” on final legislative language, and a bill is expected as early as this week.
The House has been at work on a criminal justice reform initiative since June, according to GOP aides, but is not ready to announce specific legislation.
“Over the coming months, the House Judiciary Committee will take a step-by-step approach to address a variety of criminal justice issues,” a House Judiciary Committee aide told the Washington Examiner.
Both chambers are planning to reform federal minimum sentencing requirements for non-violent offenders so judges have more discretion in sentencing.
The Senate working group comprises lawmakers who do not normally cooperate, combining some of the most conservative Republicans with the most liberal Democrats. The group includes Senate Minority Whip Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah.
Durbin and Lee in February introduced the Smarter Sentencing Act, which would allow federal judges more discretion in sentencing people convicted of nonviolent drug offenses.
The bill is aimed at reducing mandatory prison sentences for nonviolent offenders, which some consider unnecessary and have said unfairly targeted minorities.
Mandatory sentencing has also caused a costly explosion in the federal prison system population. The number of federal prisoners has increased from about 25,000 in the mid-1980s to 225,000 today, mostly due to tougher sentencing laws for drug convictions that were passed during the so-called war on drugs.
Federal prisons are consuming about a quarter of the Justice Department’s budget, and a recent inspector general’s report warned that rising prison system costs may soon require the department to reduce spending in other areas.
“Our current federal sentencing laws are out of date, they are often counterproductive, and in far too many cases in Utah and around the country they are unjust,” Lee, a former assistant U.S. attorney, said. “The Smarter Sentencing Act is a commonsense solution that will greatly reduce the financial and, more importantly, the human cost imposed on society by the broken status quo.”
Lee and Durbin’s legislation is likely to be part of the Senate’s final bipartisan measure along with language from a bill sponsored by Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.
The Cornyn and Whitehouse measure would allow prisoners to earn reduced sentences by participating in recidivism reduction programs.
In the House, a bill sponsored by Reps. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wisc., and Bobby Scott, D-Va., is leading the bipartisan negotiations.
The Sensenbrenner-Scott measure expands the circumstances under which judges can use discretion on sentencing so that minimum terms are imposed only on the more serious drug offenders, such as drug traffickers.
The legislation would reduce sentences for those inmates who participate in programs aimed at reducing recidivism. The bill would increase funding for community policing and public safety programs.
President Obama has called on Congress to reform federal sentencing laws and recently commuted the sentences of 46 people convicted of nonviolent drug offenses.
But Congress is taking the lead not from Obama, but the states, which have already embarked on aggressive prison sentencing reforms.
About 214,000 federal prisoners and more than 2 million people are locked up in state prisons and local jails. Half of federal prisoners are convicted of drug offenses.
New York, Rhode Island and Delaware, for example, have repealed mandatory minimum sentencing laws, which has reduced the prison population and saved money.
“The states have been pretty bold in this area,” said Kevin Ring, director of strategic initiatives at Families Against Mandatory Minimums, an advocacy group. “It’s a bigger cultural shift that is happening in terms of what works and what doesn’t, and being willing to rethink that.”
This article appears in the Sept. 28 edition of the Washington Examiner magazine.
