For the first time in years, the popular culture that
usually writes off all Washington politics as a useless, politically polarized
fraud is seriously looking to national politicians to do something about the
failures of the criminal justice system, writes Juan Williams of Fox News.
A rare optimism is in the air, convinced that the president
and Congress can do something to end the harsh drug sentencing policies that
have led to overcrowded jails yet have failed to stop the current epidemic of
heroin overdose deaths.
At the Iowa Brown and Black Forum, I watched as Clinton and
her fellow Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Martin
O’Malley heard loud voices from the Black Lives Matter movement calling for
urgent reform.
Twenty years ago, the safe bet for politicians was to play
on fear of crime by promising to lock up every criminal, violent and
non-violent, drug users and even those with mental illness for as long as
possible by forcing judges to use mandatory sentencing guidelines. President
Bill Clinton and a Republican Congress passed a 1994 crime bill that increased
jail sentences and led to a 60 percent rise in the U.S. prison population by
the end of Clinton’s term in 2001.
Now under the pull of popular culture those tides have
shifted. With crime rates down, concern about flaws in the justice system is on
the political upswing.
The evidence can be seen in books, television shows, on the
presidential primary campaign trail and in Congress.
In his State of the Union speech, Obama listed sentencing
reforms as one of a handful of “bipartisan priorities” that can be achieved
even in an election year. “We just might surprise the cynics, again,” the
president said, directing his remarks to the Republican Speaker, Paul Ryan
(Wis.).
A former prison inmate, Sue Ellen Allen, was in the House
gallery for the speech, selected by the president as one of his guests because
of her work to help female former inmates as they struggle to find a new life.
And last summer, Obama became the first president to visit a federal prison.
In the last year, the president has found public support in
polls as he presses for reforms to get more non-violent offenders out of jail
and to reverse mandatory sentencing policies. Former Speaker John Boehner
(R-Ohio) was also a supporter of changing the rules on mandatory sentencing to
cut jail time and help people released from prison find success on the outside.
But there had been questions about whether Ryan, upon
assuming the Speakership, would push his colleagues in the new House leadership
to work with the Senate to pass criminal justice reform.
In the last month, Ryan has made it clear he is on board.
He recently said in an interview that the “silly season” of
campaign politics is on its way but added: “I think criminal justice reform is
probably the biggest [issue] we can make a difference on – there is a real way
forward on that.”
Ryan predicted that his often-fractured caucus would agree
on a package of criminal justice reforms by June. He said he has spoken with
members with little in common – Rep. Bobby Scott (D- Va.) and Rep. Raul
Labrador (R-Idaho) — and found them willing to make a deal.
Earlier this month, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep.
Robert Goodlatte (R-Va.) took the first step toward comprehensive reform by
passing two bills. The first will ensure that criminals with mental illness get
treatment. The second is to help convicts leaving jail so they do not follow
the well-worn path of recidivism.
The same pro-reform energy is evident on the GOP campaign
trail.
Republican Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas), Marco Rubio (Fla.) and
Rand Paul (Ky.) and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie have all come out in favor
of major criminal justice reform in the last year. On the Democratic side of
the campaign, Clinton, O’Malley and Sanders talk passionately in their daily
stump speeches about the need for reform.
In most cases the candidates focus on the need for a new
approach to dealing with drugs that does not center on sending people to jail.
Of the 1.57 million Americans in federal and state prisons, half are there for
drug related offenses, according to the Department of Justice.
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