First Step Act
The First Step Act is a significant criminal justice reform law enacted in 2018, aimed at addressing the high rates of incarceration in the United States, particularly related to non-violent drug offenses. Proposed by Senators John Cornyn and Sheldon Whitehouse, and signed into law by President Donald Trump, the Act seeks to mitigate the impact of harsh sentencing laws established during the "tough-on-crime" era of the 1990s. Key provisions include granting federal judges more discretion in sentencing non-violent drug offenders and reducing mandatory minimum sentences for certain offenses, notably lowering life sentences to 25 years for third-strike drug offenses.
Additionally, the First Step Act implements reforms within the prison system, requiring the development of risk assessment programs to evaluate inmates' likelihood of reoffending and tailoring rehabilitation programs accordingly. This allows eligible inmates to earn time credits towards early release through participation in these programs. The Act also retroactively applies reforms from the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, enabling some individuals to appeal lengthy sentences tied to crack cocaine offenses. As of early 2024, over 17,000 inmates have benefited from the measures introduced by the First Step Act. It represents a pivotal shift towards reforming the criminal justice system, although some critics argue that its impact is limited and highlight the need for further reforms.
First Step Act
The First Step Act is a criminal justice law first proposed as a bill by Senators John Cornyn and Sheldon Whitehouse, then signed into law by President Donald Trump in 2018. The First Step Act was designed to help reduce America’s expanding prison population and to help walk back some of the harsh penalties on narcotic-related crimes introduced in the 1990s. Chief among these concerns were mandatory minimum sentences for narcotic-related crimes, including mandatory minimum life sentences.
Some people criticized the First Step Act for its limited reforms. However, prior to the act, legislators had struggled to enact any meaningful prison reform. For this reason, the act’s passage was marked as a first step in continued prison reform, instead of as the culmination of the nation’s efforts toward the goal.
Background
The criminal justice system in the United States has sought to delicately balance several factors when determining appropriate responses to crime. These include punishing individuals for crimes they committed, rehabilitating individuals so that they may effectively re-enter society after imprisonment, and satisfying victims’ desire for justice. Legislators, voters, and criminal justice workers have all commonly disagreed about the correct way to balance these goals. Common disagreements include deciding what severity of crime merits imprisonment, how long that imprisonment should last, and what level of rights should be retained by convicted individuals.
In 1986, the death of Len Bias, a prominent college basketball player, by drug overdose turned drug abuse into one of the most highly politicized topics of the decade. The Democrats helped push through the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which introduced harsh mandatory minimum sentences for many drug crimes. Additionally, the penalties for possessing crack cocaine, a drug popular in the Black American community, were disproportionately harsher than those for many other narcotics. In 1994, President Bill Clinton continued these policies with the creation of the three-strikes law. This law severely increased the prison sentences of persons convicted of multiple felonies.
Over time, these penalties resulted in a quickly growing population of Americans in prison. Many American citizens and politicians believed that the harsh legislation had gone too far and that American citizens had received overly harsh or unjust sentences. To remedy this problem, many legislators attempted to pass prison reform bills in Congress. The First Step Act was introduced by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Senator John Cornyn, who helped secure bipartisan support for the bill. President Donald Trump signed the bill into law in 2018. Though many prison reform advocates were disappointed with the limited scope of the new law, it was considered a strong first step in repairing the American prison system.
Overview
The First Step law includes a variety of changes intended to reduce the population of people incarcerated in the United States. Though many other means of reducing incarceration have been attempted and suggested, the First Step Act was aimed at prison sentencing reform. Proponents of the bill believed that reducing prison sentences would slowly and safely reduce the percentage of the American population in prison.
The writers and supporters of the First Step Act believed that harsh sentencing laws, many of which resulted from the tough-on-crime policies of the 1990s and 2000s, are partly responsible for America’s high incarceration rates. The First Step Act gives federal judges more power when sentencing non-violent drug offenders. Previously, harsh mandatory minimum sentence laws had the potential to force judges to sentence individuals with comparatively minor criminal records to decades in prison. Additionally, three-strikes laws could force judges to sentence anyone on their third drug-related offense to long incarceration in prison. Under the First Step Act, third-strike mandatory minimum life sentences for drug offenses are reduced to a twenty-five-year mandatory minimum sentence. Additionally, prisoners’ second drug offense has had its mandatory minimum sentence reduced from twenty years to fifteen years.
Another part of the First Step Act deals with correctional reforms. The act requires the Department of Justice (DOJ) to develop a system that the Board of Prisons (BOP) can implement to assess each prisoner’s risk of recidivism, or reoffending. Prisoners are to be assessed as having a minimum, low, medium, or high risk of recidivism. The system must also be able to determine the prisoner’s risk of violent misconduct, the prisoner’s specific needs, appropriate incentives and rewards for the prisoner, and when a prisoner is ready to transition to pre-release custody or probationary supervised release.
Under the First Step Act, prisoners in federal prison can voluntarily undergo recidivism reduction programming. Such programs are tailored to specific types of prisoners and are designed to reduce a prisoner’s risk of reoffending once they are released back into the public. Choosing to undergo such programming allows a prisoner to earn time credits that reduce the amount of time the prisoner must spend incarcerated before release. Prisoners convicted of certain crimes, such as espionage, violence, sexual exploitation, and high-level drug offenses, are ineligible to earn time credits.
Many prison reform attempts are criticized heavily because they do not apply retroactively. This means that individuals newly entering the criminal justice system are treated according to a different standard than individuals who are already in prison. The First Step Act altered the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, which increased the quantities of crack cocaine that an individual must be caught with to trigger mandatory minimum sentences so that it applied retroactively. This allowed some individuals facing long mandatory minimum sentences for possession of crack cocaine to appeal their sentences.
In the mid-2020s, the BOP made a significant impact by implementing the First Step Act. By the beginning of 2024, over 17,000 prisoners had been released from federal facilities based on credits earned under the First Step Act. The BOP modified how credits are earned as needed and created a needs and risk assessment system as stipulated in the Act. In April 2023, the First Step Implementation Act was introduced with the aim of modifying federal sending laws.
Bibliography
“Criminal Resource Manual 1000-1499: 1032. Sentencing Enhancement – 'Three Strikes' Law.” US Department of Justice, www.justice.gov/jm/criminal-resource-manual-1032-sentencing-enhancement-three-strikes-law. Accessed 19 Dec. 2024.
“First Step Act Annual Report.” US Department of Justice, June 2024, www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/309223.pdf. Accessed 19 Dec. 2024.
“The First Step Act of 2018: An Overview,” Congressional Research Service, 4 Mar. 2019, fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R45558.pdf. Accessed 19 Dec. 2024.
Grawert, Ames, and Tim Lau. “How the FIRST STEP Act Became Law – and What Happens Next,” Brennan Center for Justice, 4 Jan. 2019, www.brennancenter.org/blog/how-first-step-act-became-law-and-what-happens-next. Accessed 19 Dec. 2024.
Harriot, Michael. “91 Percent of Inmates Freed by First Step Act Were Black. Should We Give Republicans Credit?” The Root, 10 June 2019, www.theroot.com/91-percent-of-inmates-freed-by-first-step-act-were-blac-1835387925. Accessed 19 Dec. 2024.
John, Arit. “A Timeline of the Rise and Fall of ‘Tough on Crime’ Drug Sentencing.” The Atlantic, 22 Apr. 2014, www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/04/a-timeline-of-the-rise-and-fall-of-tough-on-crime-drug-sentencing/360983. Accessed 19 Dec. 2024.
Johnson, Kevin. “Roofing, Paving, Artisanal Bread: Feds Look to Kick-Start Law That Will Free Hundreds of Inmates.” USA Today, 11 July 2019, www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/07/11/first-step-act-doj-looks-prepare-inmates-early-release-prison-justice-reform/1691490001/. Accessed 3 Sept. 2019.
Lopez, German. “The First Step Act, Explained.” Vox, 5 Feb. 2019, www.vox.com/future-perfect/2018/12/18/18140973/state-of-the-union-trump-first-step-act-criminal-justice-reform. Accessed 19 Dec. 2024.