This July 6, 2020, photo file of a plaque for the Department of Justice’s Federal Bureau of Prisons is on display at the Metropolitan Detention Center in the Brooklyn borough of New York.
Mark Lennihan / AP
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Mark Lennihan / AP
This July 6, 2020, photo file of a plaque for the Department of Justice’s Federal Bureau of Prisons is on display at the Metropolitan Detention Center in the Brooklyn borough of New York.
Mark Lennihan / AP
Those working to overhaul the criminal justice system say they’re frustrated with the Biden administration after it waited nearly a year for the White House to take significant steps. leniency reform and sentencing.
“I think we are at a point where we are talking, just serving the environment,” said Sakira Cook, senior director of the judicial reform program at the Leadership Conference on Human and Civil Rights. is not enough. “We’d like to see some concrete action.”
For them, concrete action could include granting leniency to the several thousand people who were released home by the Trump administration at the start of the pandemic. President Biden can make sure those people stay free with the stroke of a pen. But he still hasn’t done it, despite months of pressure.
“For me it’s a bell rope,“Kevin Ring, leader of FAMM, which advocates ending the use of mandatory minimum prison sentences.” Because if the administration doesn’t address this issue and address it immediately, I don’t know what else we can hope to get things done. “
Ring said he hears every day that people fear being sent back to federal prison when the pandemic emergency is over.
“For some people who aren’t sure if they can get a lease, start a family, start a relationship, start college courses, start their own lives, it’s absurd. same heartless saying, ‘oh, we haven’t made a decision yet and we don’t need to because the pandemic is still going,'” Ring added.
Last week, Ring, Cook and others met with the Biden White House to turn the heat up. So far, the president has not granted clemency to anyone.
Michael Gwin, a White House spokesman, told NPR in a written statement that the president has taken steps to reform the system “since day one.”
“This includes reinstating the Department of Justice’s Office of Access to Justice, implementing new restrictions on injunctions and injunctions for federal law enforcement, terminating contracts with agencies. private detention facilities and expand access to re-entry services for previously incarcerated individuals”. Gwin said.
The number of federal prisoners has increased under Biden
Advocates say they’re happy to get credit when it’s due. They praised the Justice Department for rescinding a Trump-era memo instructing prosecutors to pursue the most serious charges they can for any crime. And they are delighted that the DOJ has launched four major civil rights investigations by police departments.
But they also take note of this fact: the federal prison population has grown by about 5,000 people during Biden’s tenure, according to Nazgol Ghandnoosh, a researcher at the Sentencing Project.
Prison numbers began to decline under former President Barack Obama, and the decline continued under Biden’s predecessor, President Donald Trump. That decline is now over, Ghandnoosh said. Some of the recent increases are due to courts and prisons slowing down at the start of the pandemic, only to restart this year.
While homicides and shootings are on the rise in many parts of the country, the majority of those crimes are handled by state and local governments, not the federal government. Ghandnoosh says that most people in federal prison are in violation of immigration or drug laws.
Ghandnoosh was expecting to see more than just “small tinkering” of the new group in Washington.
“We expect a response from the attorney general and the president that is very, very clear and supportive of the federal sentencing reform that is being considered right now, and that could help create an impetus. important for those initiatives,” she added.
Another criticism is about personnel.
The White House has not taken any action to fill vacancies on the Sentencing Committee, which sets federal sentencing guidelines for many crimes.
“In the past, some of the best reforms [that] Ring of FAMM has achieved so much in the past 10 years and they haven’t even nominated anyone to fill this vacancy,” said Ring of FAMM.
Meanwhile, key White House allies, including Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., are publicly asking the Justice Department to fire the head of the federal prison system. . They say the Federal Bureau of Prisons mismanaged the pandemic and that there are several other serious problems in the system.
Midterm elections could create a period of crisis
Democrats control both houses of Congress with a small majority. But the administration did not use the bully podium to promote the EQUAL Act, a bill that would equalize penalties for crack and powder cocaine. Those laws have punished Blacks harsher than whites for decades for essentially the same crime.
The House of Representatives proceeded to overwhelm parity legislation in September, but they are awaiting a full Senate vote.
Gwin, a White House spokesman, said that “the administration will continue to push Congress to pass much-needed legislation, while moving forward with legislative reform.”
Cook, of the Leadership Conference, points out that there may not be much time left for action. She said if history is a guide, the administration’s options could be more limited if Congress changes hands after next year’s midterm elections.
