Glenn E. Martin speaks as Senator Cory Booker (left), Senator Richard Blumenthal (center) and Rep. Tony Cardenas look on.
The following statement was submitted by Glenn E. Martin, Founder and President of JustLeadershipUSA.
I was recently invited to speak at a Congressional press conference in Washington, D.C. On September 27th, I stood beside Rep. Tony Cardenas (D-CA) to announce his introduction of The Reverse Mass Incarceration Act of 2017 in the House of Representatives. Also on the dais were Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Richard Blumenthal
(D-CT) who introduced the same bill in the Senate this past June, and
representatives of the ACLU and the NAACP. Our insistence on having a
seat at the policymaking table, or in this case, a spot in front of the
mic, is producing real results. I was proud to be in the nation’s
capital representing the voices of the 70 million Americans who have
criminal records. No one piece of legislation will remedy almost five
decades of human carnage caused by mass incarceration, but this bill is
an acknowledgement of the role played by Congress and a step in the
right direction.
In my remarks I explained why JLUSA supports this bill, which was originally conceived by The Brennan Center for Justice. If enacted, it will reward states with federal incentive grants of $20 billion over 10 years for reducing their prison population by at least seven percent over a three-year period, while at the same time making sure their crime rate doesn’t increase by more than three percent. We know how effective financial incentives can be in influencing state priorities. Federal grants amounting to billions of dollars were a major factor in creating the mass incarceration crisis in the first place. The 1994 Crime Bill authorized $12.5 billion for prison construction to states that adopted “truth-in-sentencing” laws requiring people to serve at least 85% of their sentences. Twenty-four states passed such laws, doing away with parole and other early release opportunities. The Crime Bill encouraged states to increase arrests, ratchet up sentences and build more prisons. For a period in the 1990s, a new prison opened every 15 days on average!
If passed, The Reverse Incarceration Act will accelerate the decarceration process that is already taking place in some states and across the partisan divide. Mississippi reduced its prison population by 13% between 2011 and 2014 by expanding credit for time served and loosening some of the parole requirements. During that period the crime rate also went down. Connecticut has reduced its prison population by more than 20% since 2011 through a series of reforms and crime in that state is at its lowest point since 1967.
It’s now time for our elected officials in D.C. to step up. You can’t change the past, but you can take bold steps to affect the future, and that’s what we should expect from our elected officials. Stay tuned for more information about what you can do to support The Reverse Mass Incarceration Act and bring us closer to our goal of cutting the population under criminal justice supervision in half by 2030.
In my remarks I explained why JLUSA supports this bill, which was originally conceived by The Brennan Center for Justice. If enacted, it will reward states with federal incentive grants of $20 billion over 10 years for reducing their prison population by at least seven percent over a three-year period, while at the same time making sure their crime rate doesn’t increase by more than three percent. We know how effective financial incentives can be in influencing state priorities. Federal grants amounting to billions of dollars were a major factor in creating the mass incarceration crisis in the first place. The 1994 Crime Bill authorized $12.5 billion for prison construction to states that adopted “truth-in-sentencing” laws requiring people to serve at least 85% of their sentences. Twenty-four states passed such laws, doing away with parole and other early release opportunities. The Crime Bill encouraged states to increase arrests, ratchet up sentences and build more prisons. For a period in the 1990s, a new prison opened every 15 days on average!
If passed, The Reverse Incarceration Act will accelerate the decarceration process that is already taking place in some states and across the partisan divide. Mississippi reduced its prison population by 13% between 2011 and 2014 by expanding credit for time served and loosening some of the parole requirements. During that period the crime rate also went down. Connecticut has reduced its prison population by more than 20% since 2011 through a series of reforms and crime in that state is at its lowest point since 1967.
It’s now time for our elected officials in D.C. to step up. You can’t change the past, but you can take bold steps to affect the future, and that’s what we should expect from our elected officials. Stay tuned for more information about what you can do to support The Reverse Mass Incarceration Act and bring us closer to our goal of cutting the population under criminal justice supervision in half by 2030.
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