In a Wall Street Journal editorial op-ed column last week, Sen. Tom Cotton offered tepid support for prison reform measures in the FIRST STEP Act, which the House passed in late May with overwhelming bipartisan support.
We fully recognize that drug dealing is harmful to society and threatens public safety, and that the potential for violence, gang involvement, and overdose is inherent in most drug transactions.
The Justice Department has reported to Congress that education programs yield a 16 percent reduction in recidivism among participating inmates; occupational training programs have seen a 33 percent reduction; Federal Prison Industries, a work skills program, 24 percent; and residential drug abuse treatment, more than 15 percent.
There is an automatic five-year mandatory minimum penalty for carrying a firearm during the commission of a drug offense, which must be served consecutively to whatever sentence is imposed for the underlying drug offense.
Under federal law, a defendant charged as part of a drug conspiracy-even a low-level courier, who may be acting solely to support his own addiction-can be charged and sentenced based on the total amount of drugs sold by everyone who participated in that conspiracy.
Senators are currently debating the possibility of reducing the mandatory minimum penalties for second-time drug offenders from 20 years to 15 years, and for third-time drug offenders from life in prison without the possibility of parole to 25 years.
While neither of us has ever been particularly drawn to the argument that the goal of criminal justice reform is to save money, we do note that when you are talking about a federal budget of roughly $4.1 trillion, any single expenditure will seem minuscule.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2018/08/20/why-its-not-soft-on-crime-to-support-criminal-justice-reform/
We fully recognize that drug dealing is harmful to society and threatens public safety, and that the potential for violence, gang involvement, and overdose is inherent in most drug transactions.
The Justice Department has reported to Congress that education programs yield a 16 percent reduction in recidivism among participating inmates; occupational training programs have seen a 33 percent reduction; Federal Prison Industries, a work skills program, 24 percent; and residential drug abuse treatment, more than 15 percent.
There is an automatic five-year mandatory minimum penalty for carrying a firearm during the commission of a drug offense, which must be served consecutively to whatever sentence is imposed for the underlying drug offense.
Under federal law, a defendant charged as part of a drug conspiracy-even a low-level courier, who may be acting solely to support his own addiction-can be charged and sentenced based on the total amount of drugs sold by everyone who participated in that conspiracy.
Senators are currently debating the possibility of reducing the mandatory minimum penalties for second-time drug offenders from 20 years to 15 years, and for third-time drug offenders from life in prison without the possibility of parole to 25 years.
While neither of us has ever been particularly drawn to the argument that the goal of criminal justice reform is to save money, we do note that when you are talking about a federal budget of roughly $4.1 trillion, any single expenditure will seem minuscule.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2018/08/20/why-its-not-soft-on-crime-to-support-criminal-justice-reform/
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