The Practical Lawyer

September 26 - October 2, 2016

Election year politics lead to demise of federal justice reform act

By Ethan C. Nobles

Late last year, there was much fanfare surrounding the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act (S. 2123) – a bill designed to address the problem of overcrowding in federal prisons.

The bill had attracted bipartisan support in Congress and a number of groups – including the American Bar Association (ABA) – were hopeful the bill would pass and lead to wide-ranging reforms in federal prisons. In spite of the optimism surrounding the bill and the way Democrats and Republicans cooperated in drafting and supporting it, it seems the act has stalled.

It appears that election year politics has reared its ugly head – senators don’t want to appear soft on crime and our congressional leaders are used to not getting along in the name of doing something productive, anyway.

So, why did some deem the bill necessary and what was it supposed to do? Currently, federal prisons are operating at 131 percent of capacity and nearly half of federal prisoners are serving sentences for nonviolent drug crimes, according to the ABA.

Furthermore, the federal prison population has increased around 800 percent since 1980, due in part to mandatory sentences for various crimes.

The act was to reduce federal mandatory minimum sentences and give second chances to nonviolent offenders facing long prison sentences. Also, the bill provided for early release of some nonviolent inmates over 60-years-old or who are terminally ill.

In short, more avenues were to be given for nonviolent offenders to receive reduced sentences or get out of jail early. The notion was that housing as many federal prisoners as the nation does currently is incredibly expensive and the bill was going to address that issue, cut down on prison overcrowding and motivate nonviolent criminals to clean up their act in hopes of getting out of prison early.

While plenty of voters love the idea of seeing the federal government take steps to save money, there was clearly some political risk involved in supporting the act. Namely, politicians who rallied behind it might be viewed as being soft on crime and that is not a desired reputation for anyone running for reelection to have.

Perhaps there should have been more effort to pass it last year when senators were farther from reelection. Did the bill make good, practical sense? Maybe and maybe not. However, it is clear we’ll not know the answer to that question as staying in office for another term appears more important than courting controversy. One would think the merits – or lack thereof – of the reforms would be worth discussing at length, but it appears that such a debate never really had the chance of happening.

Ethan C. Nobles is an attorney in Benton focusing on real estate, evictions, contracts, wills, trusts, incorporations, bankruptcy and other areas of law as the mood strikes. You can reach him at Ethan@NoblesLawFirm.com or visit him on the Internet at NoblesLawFirm.com.