A sweeping bill seeking to reform the criminal justice system has cleared the Senate, in a legislative victory for both progressive advocates and law-and-order conservatives that would give judges more discretion when sentencing some drug offenders and would boost prisoner rehabilitation efforts.
The First Step Act, which passed 87-12, attracted support from both sides of the aisle, as well as from public figures such as Patricia Arquette, Mark Cuban, Kim Kardashian West and Kanye West. Donald Trump supported the iteration of the bill that passed in the House in May, and the most current version that will need to return to the House for another vote (which it is expected to pass), before it reaches his desk for a signature later this week.
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The act would reduce mandatory minimum sentences for a number of drug-related crimes, allow judges to circumvent federal mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent offenders when they see fit, expand rehabilitative opportunities for federal prisoners, and ban some correctional practices criticized as inhumane, such as the shackling of pregnant women. The act would give elderly and terminally ill inmates a path home and invest tens of millions in re-entry programming.
The act would end so-called "three strikes" mandatory life sentences for defendants facing a third drug conviction, except for those with a prior "serious violent felony". The "stacking" regulations that make it illegal to posses a firearm while committing a crime, even if the firearm is not used, would also no longer come into play.
The bill would also retroactively extend the 2010 Fair Sentencing Act, a move that could affect thousands of drug offenders serving disproportionately long sentences for crack cocaine versus the powder variant. As many as 4,000 people currently serving long sentences could be eligible for release, according to some advocates.
