Outlook and Details for the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2015

OUTLOOK FOR THE BILL: As of right now, it is projected that there is a 36% chance of this bill being enacted.

Only about 21% of bills that made it past committee in 2013–2015 were enacted.

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Factors considered:

• The sponsor is the chairman of a committee to which the bill has been referred.
• A cosponsor is the ranking member of a committee to which the bill has been referred.
• The sponsor is in the majority party and at least one third of the bill's cosponsors are from the minority party.
• At least two cosponsors serve on a committee to which the bill has been referred.
• The bill was referred to Senate Judiciary.

The bill would only apply to federal prisons, which currently hold about 205,000 people, a fraction of the approximately 2.4 million who are incarcerated across the country. Still, passage of this bill could provide a momentum boost for reform advocates and spur states to look at similar legislation, and this needs to be done to avoid wasting future tax dollars.

Bipartisan support

While other sentencing reform bills have been submitted in Congress in the past, this is the first to have the backing of Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), a longtime hardliner on criminal justice policy and an opponent of previous efforts. The bill has to be approved by Grassley’s committee before it can reach the Senate floor, so his backing is essential for the advancement of sentencing reforms in this session of Congress.

In addition to Grassley, the Senate bill is co-sponsored by Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Pat Leahy (D-VT) and 10 other influential Democrats and Republicans. In the House the bill is sponsored by Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), Ranking Member John Conyers (D-MI), and 16 other co-sponsors from both parties. The backing of both judiciary committee chairmen means that these bills have a very good chance of getting considered in both the Senate and the House.

Changes to mandatory sentences

Under the bills, the mandatory sentences that are currently issued under the federal “three strikes” law for people convicted of three drug-related crimes would be reduced from a life sentence to a mandatory minimum of 25 years. The mandatory minimum sentence for a second drug conviction would also be reduced from 20 years to 15 years. In many cases these changes would apply retroactively to currently incarcerated inmates. Judges would also get more discretion to issue sentences below the statutory minimums for defendants who have not been involved in violent crimes, have not been known to possess firearms, and are not part of a “continuing criminal enterprise.”

The bills would also retroactively reduce sentences for inmates who were sentenced under the exceedingly harsh guidelines for crack possession that were required by federal law until 2011. From 1994 to 2011, a person possessing just five5 grams of crack was considered a felon, while a person found with powdered cocaine would have to have 100 grams in their possession for a similar conviction. In 2011 Congress increased the amount of crack required for a similar future convictions to 28 grams, and this bill would apply that change to people convicted of crack possession prior to 2011 as well. The statutory maximum sentence for unlawful possession of a firearm by a convicted felon would be increased under the bills from 10 years to 15 years.

Differences between the House and Senate bills

The Senate version also contains a range of provision that are not in the House version. For example, it would establish new mandatory minimums for crimes related to domestic violence that would range from 10 years to life imprisonment depending on the seriousness of the crime. It would also create a new mandatory minimum of 5 years for people convicted of providing certain “controlled good or services” to groups and individuals designated as terrorists or any person affiliated with a program to develop weapons of mass destruction.

Other unique provisions in the Senate version include a recidivism reduction program that inmates could participate in in exchange for small reductions to their sentence, limitations on solitary confinement for juveniles, “compassionate release” of some non-violent elderly offenders, and a “prerelease custody” program that would allow inmates to spend some time in a reentry program before being fully released from the system.

History of the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act By Set Me Free Sam

So now that you know about America's prison system, let's get an update on where the bill is in Congress. On October 1, 2015 the bill was introduced to Congress. On October 22, 2015 the bill was recommended by the Senate Judiciary Committee to be considered further. This recommendation to advance the bill comes at about the same time that a report was released saying that 77% of Americans support repealing mandatory minimums for nonviolent offenses. The bill is now moved to the Senate floor and companion legislation has been moved to the House.


On November 18, 2015 the House Judiciary Committee voted to advance the Sentencing Reform Act. This means that it will go to the House floor as well as a companion bill on the Senate floor. Many people are optimistic that the bill will be heading to the President's desk soon. Michael Collins, the deputy director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, is one of those people. He said, "We have a bill moving in the Senate, and now we have a companion bill moving in the House, so I’m optimistic we’ll have legislation on the President’s desk in a matter of months.” The House vote also came a few days after a report that said almost half of the nearly 100,000 individuals in federal prison for drug offenses were in the lowest two criminal history categories, and another quarter had no prior criminal history at all. The pie chart below shows that 63% of drug offenders sent to prison since 1998 have been Class C-E felonies.

Class A is the highest felony, things such as first degree murder and rape. While Class C felonies are middle of the road felonies. An example of Class E felony is a DUI.

Do Americans really need to be wasting their tax dollars on these types of people so many years? Not to mention, do these people really need to sit in prison for years when they are apart of the lowest criminal history categories?

Welcome to the Mass Incarceration State!

by Freedom Freddy 

The United States of America has more than 2.4 million of its citizens in state and federal prisons, which is far and away the largest national prison population and highest incarceration rate in the history of the world. Just look at the current situation!

One in every four prisoners in the world rot in American prisons. Americans spend, in many states, over $60,000 a year per prisoner to maintain this distinction, and we can’t afford it. Prison overcrowding and an inability to properly house and care for inmates has gotten so bad in the state of California (home of the “three strikes” law which doles out life sentences to repeat felony offenders regardless of whether violence was involved) that the US Supreme Court in 2011 forced the state to either let prisoners out or build more prisons. They said it was “cruel and unusual” to treat people this way. The Federal penal system is doing no better. Driven by “get tough” sentencing legislation for non-violent drug offenses that overwhelmed both Congress and state government in the 1980s and 1990s – like the three strikes laws – the prison population of America has spiked. This was also the beginning of America’s doubling down on its “drug war” – which had been failing badly since President Nixon declared it in the 1970s and is still failing, miserably. But we sure have thrown a lot of people in prison! Look at this graph showing the spike beginning in the 1980s! Holy cow!

Now let’s look at a graph showing the who is the target of this imprisonment. Answer: African-Americans compose a vastly higher proportion of prisoners than they represent in the general population. 

Maybe this isn't so helpful for race relations? 

Ok, enough graphs. This is a problem so obvious and so bad that during one of the most polarized political climates in Washington in a century, the issue has spurred Republicans and Democrats to craft and promote a bipartisan plan to do something about America’s incarceration problem. If passed, the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act (House) and Sentencing Reform Act (Senate) would be the first major and substantive pieces of non-budgetary legislation since the gridlock that ensued after Republicans took over the House in 2010 and stonewalled the Democratic President, Barack Obama. The laws would reduce federal mandatory minimums for nonviolent drug offenses, reduce life sentences for three strikes felony offenses to 25 years, and would apply retroactively, which would do a great deal to immediately reduce the prison population. As wild as this seems, it should not be that surprising. After all, both political parties are equally to blame for the mandatory minimum sentences and both have zero interest in raising the taxes necessary to continue to pay for a mass incarceration state. The bill is more popular with Democrats than Republicans, whose political image has always rested more squarely on “law and order” when it comes to corrections over the more liberal approaches of prevention and rehabilitation. But key Republican support from figures like Iowa Senator Charles Grassley has helped get the legislation out of the judiciary committees in both houses, a feat in and of itself.

Whether the legislation will ever get to the President’s desk to sign is questionable in an election year, but there is real hope on both sides of the aisle. This blog is devoted to stirring up discussion on this important issue, discussing some aspects in more depth, and keeping you abreast of development as this legislation works its way through Congress over the next several weeks. We welcome your comments. Freedom is the only way!