Mass incarceration is a long and pervasive disease we all live with in the U.S. We’ve lived with it for over 40 years. If you consider its precursors, we have been living with systematic oppression of black and brown bodies for centuries.
This legacy will not be dismantled overnight, but we’ve recently seen efforts to decrease mass incarceration in the age of President Trump.
It was exciting nearly to take the big step towards reducing mass incarceration at the federal level last year. The Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act (SRCA) in the Senate introduced by Chairman Grassley, as well as the Sentencing Reform Act introduced by Chairman Goodlatte and the Corrections and Recidivism Reduction Act introduced by Representative Chaffetz are still bills that enjoy broad bipartisan support.
We lobbied more than 500 times, the House started whipping members (counting votes), and most importantly this collective effort educated hundreds of staff of the reality of mass incarceration in the last Congress. Returning citizens lobbied and spoke at Congressional briefings about this unique system of injustice—today called “criminal justice.” We spoke about excessive sentences and the terrible, moral effect on communities, as well as the excessive burden on taxpayers.
We all shoulder the burden of mass incarceration at a cost of approximately $80 billion. This figure says nothing of the emotional and psychological trauma that’s left on communities and families. Nor does it contain the full impact of returning citizen’s loss in terms of earning potential and quality, productive years.
We now have a new Congress and the new President has made strong statements criminalizing immigrants and calling for restoration of “law and order.” We continue to meet with criminal justice reform champions in Congress to push for reintroduction of these important bills. Consultation needs to take place with the White House and the process must begin anew.
Chairman Grassley, Senator Durbin, and the original cosponsors of SRCA continue to meet to find a path forward. We are hopeful that those conversations continue to progress positively. The President’s senior advisor, Mr. Jared Kushner, has been personally touched by mass incarceration, and is taking up the issue on behalf of the White House. There was recently a high profile meeting with Congress and the White House to discuss criminal justice legislation. This is a clear priority in the 115th Congress.
The Speaker of the House Rep. Paul Ryan spoke strongly about criminal justice reform being something that’s a “long time in coming” and something that’s “getting done in 2017.” The Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Rep. Bob Goodlatte, and his counterpart Ranking Member John Conyers, Jr., “remain committed to passing bipartisan criminal justice reform.”
Senators Grassley and Whitehouse are actively working with the Majority Leader to quickly pass another bill: the juvenile justice and delinquency prevention bill or JJDPA. JJDPA is designed to reauthorize grants and other guidance to keep kids out of jail, and address misbehavior through its root causes like abuse or lack of support at home that unfortunately too-often results in juvenile incarceration. This bill also enjoys considerable bipartisan support and deals with the earliest parst of mass incarceration: juvenile detention. Children are 80% more likely to recidivate than adults after a period of incarceration.
Criminal justice Reform is not without real challenges. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been working to repeal an agency memo at the Department of Justice (DOJ), which has been partially responsible for more than $1 billion in savings through reduced incarceration. He claims that the nation is seeing the beginnings of a crime wave despite also admitting that crime rates remain at an all-time low.
The former federal prosecutor from the Eastern District of Tennessee and former head lobbyist against SRCA in the last Congress was appointed to head the violent crime taskforce at the DOJ. The AG also halted police reforms jointly agreed to by various law enforcement agencies to reform local policing. It’s a reminder that smart, competent people disagree. These gentlemen and others are increasingly more and more marginalized in their thinking and persistently challenged by the facts.
I was recently in a congressional office that will be drafting sentencing and prison reform. I mentioned seeing a television show where men in bulletproof vests were holding guns and rifles. This joint federal/local drug task force was preparing to forcibly enter a house on national TV. I illustrated that upon closer inspection what I was seeing on TV was just one or two miles away from my house, this was my life. I recounted stories of friends being killed before they were able to graduate high school, and other friends that went to prison. I simply quoted John Bradford: “there, but for the grace of God, go I.” I told the staffer that I’m sitting there in a marble building thanks to a home filled with love, guidance, the values of our Christian faith, and just enough resources. I grew up, like so many young men of color, just inches from a jail or prison cell.
In spite of the challenges to reducing mass incarceration we continue this work. The legislative branch creates the laws, and we have many champions in Congress. In the words of Quaker theologian Isaac Pennington, we will serve as a prophetic and pragmatic reminder of what communities with equity and justice looks like through public policy. Friends will continue to encourage their members of Congress to, in the words of Mr. Pennington: “Give all [people] the liberty of their conscience towards God,” to help guide and discern “a narrow search after what is unjust, unrighteous, and oppressive in any kind; and as fast as it is discovered let it be removed…”
Help us to bring legislators to discover and remove unjust and racist elements that comprise these systems of oppression manifest in the carceral state that is mass incarceration.
Ask your Senators to urge leadership and Chairman Grassley of the Senate Judiciary Committee to introduce the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act in the Senate. Additionally, encourage your Representative to urge leadership and Chairman Goodlatte to introduce the Sentencing Reform Act and the Corrections and Recidivism Reduction Act in the House of Representatives.
