Project for Opportunity and Safety

Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act is smart justice

The bipartisan Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2015, of which Sen. Bill Nelson is a co-sponsor, is an important step in making federal sentencing guidelines fit crimes. The federal government has a duty to prosecute unlawful persons, but we must ensure that our sentencing practices match the crime committed.

While serving as a state executive clemency lawyer in Florida for more than 20 years, I’ve visited 30 Florida prisons, including the third largest federal women’s prison in the U.S., located in Tallahassee. I have looked in the faces our young adults. Many are seeking an opportunity to plead their case for reduced sentences for nonviolent offenses, which are usually drug use related.

The bill:

•Reforms and targets enhanced mandatory minimums for prior drug felons.

•Broadens the existing safety valve and creates a second safety valve.

•Reforms enhanced mandatory minimums and sentences for firearm offenses (after compromises this provision may be excluded).

•Creates new mandatory minimums for interstate domestic violence and certain export control violations.

•Amends the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to create a five-year mandatory minimum prison term for providing goods and services to terrorists or a state sponsor of terrorism, to any person in connection with development of weapons of mass destruction, or to a country subject to an arms embargo.

•Applies the Fair Sentencing Act and certain sentencing reforms retroactively.

•Provides for prison reform based on the Cornyn-Whitehouse CORRECTIONS Act.

•Limits solitary confinement for juveniles in federal custody and improves the accuracy of federal criminal records.

•Provides for a report and inventory of all federal criminal offenses.

To achieve fair and reasonable prison terms, we must drive the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act to the top of the U.S. Senate agenda. For this bill to pass, it will need support from both political parties and strong support from taxpayers and the voting public.

Regardless of political affiliation, we as Floridians have a duty to seek true justice in all judicial processes, and the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act will help to fulfill that duty. Please contact your senators and representatives to encourage their support.