More Than 30 Groups Outline Broad-Based Principles for Criminal Justice Reform

Justice Reform News 02.11,15

A group of 32 civil and human rights, faith, and criminal justice reform groups on February 10 sent a letter to members of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary to outline their shared principles for broad-based criminal justice reform.

The letter reminds Chairman Chuck Grassley, R. Iowa, and Ranking Member Patrick Leahy, D. Vt., that in the 113th Congress, “bipartisan legislation was introduced in both the House and Senate that aimed to achieve the goals of reducing excessive incarceration and racial disparities in the federal prison system.” In the 114th Congress, the groups are requesting that additional bipartisan efforts focus on the following five principles:

  • Restore proportionality to drug sentencing
  • Promote and adequately fund recidivism reduction and re-entry programming
  • Make sentencing reductions retroactive
  • Expand BOP’s Compassionate Release Program
  • Expand time credits for good behavior

According to the letter, the federal prison population has jumped to nearly 211,000 today from around 25,000 in FY1980, while the Bureau of Prisons’ (BOP) budget has doubled over the last decade – constituting around a quarter of the Department of Justice’s entire budget in the President’s FY16 proposal.

The letter says that, according to the BOP’s current director, this has created a system that “is over-capacity and jeopardizing the safety of staff and prisoners.”

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights issued a companion letter today reflecting many of the coalition’s priorities for the 114th Congress, released last month, including legislation that addresses front-end drivers of mass incarceration and racial disparities in incarceration, eliminates discriminatory profiling in all its forms, removes barriers to re-entry and addresses collateral consequences for formerly incarcerated individuals, and addresses specific needs of young people by supporting alternatives to incarceration.

To read the entire letter outlining the groups’ shared principles, click here.