The First Step Act is a bipartisan criminal justice bill passed by the 115th Congress and signed by President Trump in December 2018. It reforms federal prisons and sentencing laws in order to reduce recidivism, decrease the federal inmate population, and maintain public safety. It will also expand compassionate release for terminally ill patients and reauthorize the SecondChance Act of 2007.
About First Step Act in brief
The First Step Act is a bipartisan criminal justice bill passed by the 115th Congress and signed by President Trump in December 2018. It reforms federal prisons and sentencing laws in order to reduce recidivism, decrease the federal inmate population, and maintain public safety. An initial version of the bill, H. R. 5682, was sponsored and introduced by Rep. Doug Collins on May 7, 2018. After introduction, the bill was immediately referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary, and was subsequently voted out of committee—accompanied by a report—on a 25–5 vote. The bill passed the House of Representatives by a 360–59 vote the same day, with remarks from many congressional members, including Rep. Jerry Nadler, who acknowledged that though the bill did not include sentencing reform as some would have liked, it was an important first step. The Senate actually did not vote on criminal justice reform until December 2018 due to disagreement about the scope of the First Step act. Many Senators moved to expand the controversial amendment to 4109 to render an inmate ineligible for good-time credits for good behavior. Many Senate Democrats were unwilling to support the bill without the inclusion of meaningful sentence reform akin to the measures proposed in the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2015, many Senate Democrats said. After months of intense brokering in the Senate, Senator Chuck Grassley introduced a version of bill on November 15, 2018 that incorporated the correctional reforms from S.
2795H R 5682 and added supplemental measures, and—importantly—included new sentencing reform provisions. It garnered more than 40 cosponsors. In an unusual procedural move, the Senate substituted the content of S. 756 into a substantively unrelated bill called the Save Our Seas Act, which was originally introduced by Senator Dan Sullivan on March 29, 2017. The House passed the bill on May 22, 2018, but the Senate did not ultimately vote on H.R. 5681, nor did it consider S. 2795—a companion bill to S. 3747, which preserved S. 3649’s content and added an additional title reauthorizing and amending the Second Chance Act of 2007. The bill directed the U.S. Attorney General to develop this system along with evidence-based recidivist reduction programs for federal prisoners. It also authorized new markets for Federal Prison Industries; mandate de-escalation training for correctional officers and employees; direct reporting on opioid treatment and abuse in prisons; improve availability of feminine hygiene products in prison ; and other actions. It was signed into law by President Donald Trump on December 13, 2018; it will go into effect on January 1, 2019; and it is expected to be signed by Attorney General Jeff Sessions on January 15, 2019. It will also expand compassionate release for terminally ill patients and reauthorize the SecondChance Act of2007. It would also mandate the Bureau of Prisons to provide identification to returning citizens; authorize new markets.
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This page is based on the article First Step Act published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 04, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
