Prison and sentencing reform is gaining bipartisan support in the U.S. House and Senate. Most federal legislators have come to the same conclusions that many state leaders have—that we lock up too many people, for far too long, and at a great waste of taxpayer dollars.
Indeed, Texas—a state not known for being lenient on lawbreakers—began reforming its laws in 2007 and has since closed three state prisons, saved taxpayers $3 billion and now enjoys its lowest crime rate since 1968. Other states have had similar success, and federal legislators have taken notice.
That is why the U.S. Senate is currently considering legislation sponsored by the Republican chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and his Democratic counterpart. Their legislation, the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act (S2123), has the support of approximately 400 organizations—from the ACLU on the left to the Koch brothers on the right.
The bill would allow prisonersonly those convicted of nonviolent and non-sexual crimes—to apply for entry into a sentencing-reduction program. After being screened and successfully completing the program, they still do their time, but at home through ankle-bracelet monitoring or in a monitored halfway house.
It is not “get out of jail free” legislation—it’s smart reform that has already had success when used by various state governments.
Sadly, Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas opposes this effort. Earlier this year he told his colleagues that “we have an under-incarceration problem.” Yet the reality is that we have 5 percent of the world’s population, yet we house almost 25 percent of the world’s total prison population.
There is clearly a better way to do things.
The federal legislation contains specific language that prohibits those convicted of violent crimes from being released. Senator Cotton and a few others have argued that this bill will release violent criminals into the streets. Why? They claim that someone sentenced for a drug-related crime (46.4 percent of federal inmates) was likely arrested and charged for violent offenses, but then pleaded guilty to a lower conviction that removed the violent charges.
But this claim misses the point. Should we simply release people from prison without trying to ensure that they will not return to crime? S2123 participants will go through recidivism-reduction training and monitored-release confinement. If anything, we will make our streets safer by pointing federal inmates—90 percent of whom will be released someday—in the right direction and giving them the tools to make it on the outside. That is why passing S2123 is so important—because it contains those safety provisions.
In the 1980s and 1990s, we believed that we could make society safer if we locked everyone up forever. Proponents of that view argue that crime went down. It did, but for more reasons than just increased incarceration. Look north. Canada has seen the same decrease in crime since the 1980s as the United States, yet its prison population and sentences have stayed the same. But in the U.S., recidivism went up—exponentially.
The proposed federal bill would implement the same recidivism-reduction programs and sentencing reforms that have proved successful in several states. The sentencing reforms in this bill focus on low-level drug offenders, many of whom suffer from drug addiction. This bill will help rehabilitate them so they do not re-offend.
Senator Cotton claims that this bill is an experiment. But the reality is the over 30 states already engaged in the experiment—and it has proved successful. As Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, one of S2123’s original sponsors, said about the similar Texas legislation, “Texas decided to become not just tough, but also smart on crime.”
My hope is that Senator Cotton examines the facts and joins other conservatives and law enforcement experts—such as former FBI directors William Sessions and Louis Freeh, former U.S. Attorneys General Michael Mukasey and Richard Thornburgh, FBI Agents Association president Reynaldo Tariche and Americans for Tax Reform founder Grover Norquist—in supporting S2123.
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John DiPippa is Dean Emeritus and Distinguished Professor of Law and Public Policy at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. He served as dean from 2008-2012 and returned to the classroom on July 1, 2012.