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The State Of Bipartisan Criminal Justice Reform

In the summer of 2020, as millions of people demonstrated for racial justice following the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, it felt as though major criminal justice reforms and a reckoning with mass incarceration were imminent.


But the last four years have ushered in a new narrative — that bipartisan criminal justice reform is dead. Commentators in national publications have called the movement “a mile wide and an inch deep,” and noted that “political leaders across the country are returning to a tough-on-crime approach.”


Not so, argues Udi Ofer, the founding director of the Princeton Policy Advocacy Clinic, in an opinion piece for The Atlantic


“Much of the bipartisan agreement on criminal-justice reform is alive," he writes. "Its advocates continued to slowly score wins even as crime rose, and are now still pushing for reforms as it declines again."


Ofer concedes that the “accelerated reform” of the previous decade has passed, and policy goals of reformers have now become less audacious. The “victories are not always flashy,” he writes.


But he argues instead that criminal justice reform “has entered a new era of quiet pragmatism, which focuses on practical solutions and consensus-building rather than ideological purity.”


Ofer points to a number of statewide reform measures that have passed —  many in conservative states:


“So far this year, deep-red Oklahoma passed a second-look law (legislation focused on allowing judges to review long sentences) permitting resentencing if domestic violence was a mitigating factor in a crime; Mississippi extended its parole-eligibility law; Nebraska passed an alternative-to-incarceration program for military veterans; Kansas unanimously passed civil-asset-forfeiture reform; New Hampshire passed a law prohibiting racial profiling by the police; Colorado and Tennessee passed occupational-licensing reform, allowing more formerly incarcerated people to obtain better-paying jobs; Arizona unanimously passed probation reform; Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin issued an executive order to support successful reentry into society for formerly incarcerated people; New Jersey changed its “use of force” policy in an effort to resolve mental-health crises without violence; and more.”


There was even a reform victory in the divided Congress with the Federal Prison Oversight Act, legislation aimed at bringing additional accountability to the federal prison system, Ofer notes. While the EQUAL Act, which would end the sentencing disparities between crack and powder cocaine, has not yet passed, it “garners strong bipartisan support,” Ofer writes.


“Many of these developments are modest and don’t receive major news coverage, but they collectively show that a lot of reform is still popular in both parties, and is in fact happening—regularly—across America,” he argues. “There is still a long way to go. The United States continues to be an anomaly among wealthy democratic nations, with six times the incarceration rate of Canada and 7.5 times the rate of Germany. We haven’t seen anywhere near the reforms we need. But the momentum continues, even if more slowly for now.”

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A daily report co-sponsored by Arizona State University, Criminal Justice Journalists, and the National Criminal Justice Association

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