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Mark Holden's May 19 op-ed ("Lee shows principled leadership in criminal-justice reform") identified positive aspects of the federal Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act, which is supported by Sen. Mike Lee. But Holden's piece fails to mention some important flaws in this bill.
First, the sentencing reforms contained in the bill would only apply to offenders that fall into criminal-history categories one or two under the federal sentencing guidelines; this limitation excludes most federal prisoners from benefiting, even if the bill is passed. Second, if this bill were to become law, many more federal prisoners would be placed in halfway houses without fixing any of the myriad issues plaguing the vast network of privately run federal halfway houses in the United States.
The federal sentencing guidelines place offenders into a range of categories based on their criminal histories; categories one through six, with one being the lowest and six the highest. An offender with even a modest criminal history can easily end up in category three, four, five, or six. In fact, because this bill would only apply to categories one and two, it would not be applicable to the vast majority of offenders in federal prison. What about the rest of those in federal prison? Do the statistics cited by Holden not apply to them? I am frustrated that our leaders continue pretending that this problem deserves their attention, without telling the public that the bills they write would only apply to narrow categories of offenders.
That said, the sentencing aspect of this bill is a step up from Lee's Smarter Sentencing Act introduced in the last Congress, which applied only to offenders in category one of the federal sentencing guidelines and contained no retroactive provision. In addition to benefiting one more category of offenders, the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act also contains a retroactive provision; it would give some federal prisoners whose cases have already been adjudicated the opportunity to request that sentencing judges revisit their cases and make sentencing changes. So the sentencing aspect of this bill is a small step in the right direction, but the public should not be fooled; it is a small step.
The corrections portion of the Smarter Sentencing Act, on the other hand, has very little that is desirable. In fact, I would argue that the corrections portion of this bill will do more harm than good because it will place many more offenders into privately run halfway houses. The theory behind having halfway houses is a good one; that allowing offenders to "halfway" transition to their communities before actually being released from prison is better than simply turning them loose with the expectation that they will figure everything out alone.
Unfortunately, the private contractors who operate halfway houses for the Federal Bureau of Prisons don't care at all about helping offenders to effectively transition from prison to society; they care about profit, and more prisoners coming to them means more profit. So they — and their lobbyists — will support the Smarter Sentencing Act, even if it may mean more lenient sentences on the front end of some prisoners' sentences.
My comments shouldn't be construed to mean that I am opposed to the Smarter Sentencing and Corrections Act; I believe the sentencing portion makes the bill worth passing. But I do think that the public should be aware of all aspects of this bill. Ensuring that our representatives — and those who speak to inform us of their activities — inform us not only of the good, but also of the bad and the ugly regarding what they are doing, is critical to achieving good results from our government.
Ben Aldana, who spent several years incarcerated on drug charges, is a 2014 graduate of Utah Valley University, currently attends law school at Brigham Young University and lives in Orem with his wife and two children.