Senate sponsors, led by Senators Grassley (IA) and Durbin (IL), have re-introduced the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act (SRCA).
This bill is a comprehensive criminal justice reform bill that would make fair, smart reductions in mandatory minimum sentences and lower our massive prison population at the federal level.
Support Criminal Justice Reform
Urge your senators to support the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act
Support for SRCA is building by the day. The bill has 10 cosponsors, evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. This week, the NFL endorsed the criminal justice reform bill, and the Washington Post editorial board wrote in support. Whether through meetings with football players, drug policy analyses, or faith community advocacy, more people are recognizing the need for sentencing and prison reform.
This bill would reduce mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug crimes, including the extreme “three strike” mandatory life sentence for third-time drug offenses. It also gives judges more discretion to sentence based on the individual details of the offense, rather than a prescribed mandatory minimum. These changes would lower our prison population and spending on prisons, while other sections support reforms to boost re-entry programs in prison with to the goal of lowering the chances of recidivism.
We are disappointed that this year’s bill text includes a sentencing enhancement for trafficking of the synthetic drug fentanyl. This enhancement functions similarly to a mandatory minimum by requiring judges to increase sentences by between one day and five years if the presence of fentanyl is determined. This policy is reminiscent of other failed “war on drugs” policies that have skyrocketed the number of inmates in our prison system and have created the mass incarceration we see today. Nevertheless, we recognize the nature of compromise, which has brought law enforcement and conservative voices to the table on criminal justice reform, and we support SRCA as a whole.
But we need your help to keep sentencing reform moving. Chairman Goodlatte has yet to re-introduce last Congress’s counterpart in the House, the Sentencing Reform Act. SRCA is a viable piece of bipartisan legislation that can and should become law. We are encouraged by different iterations of sentencing reform proposals in the House and Senate, such as the Reverse Mass Incarceration Act and the Smarter Sentencing Act, which keep the chambers moving forward on this critical issue. As Rep. Mark Walker (NC) wrote in a recent editorial, “Each person incarcerated is part of a family and of a community, and these families and friends feel the weight of incarceration every day.”
Tell your Senators to co-sponsor SRCA and your Representative to work on a House solution.
