For the thousands of women and men still caged in federal prisons by the racist crack vs. cocaine sentencing of the 1980s who will now have the possibility of being re-sentenced and coming home, the First Step Act, which passed the Senate on Dec. 18, is reason to celebrate.
The First Step Act is just what it says it is: a first step for change for a small percentage of the more than 200,000 people incarcerated in federal prisons.
Untouched by this legislation are more than 2 million people incarcerated in state prisons and city and county jails.
Embedded in the legislation are other steps forward, including allowing more judicial discretion in sentencing, outlawing the shackling of women in labor and childbirth (yes, this still exists in many states and counties) and reauthorizing the Second Chance Act, which provides federal funding for drug treatment, vocational training and other reentry programming.
Many organizations, individuals and corporations supported the bill including GEO and CoreCivic, the two largest private prison/detention corporations. While this may seem surprising, they see in the First Step Act the growth of privatized mega “halfway” houses and the growth of privatized fee-based e-carceration or electronic monitoring, an alternative form of 24/7 incarceration.
Yes, it is better to not be incarcerated; however, greatly expanding this system of control rather than time-limited and carefully administered parole, I believe, should not be the go-to solution for decarceration.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, one of the bill authors, hailed a “big bipartisan victory,” saying: “Historic criminal justice reform happens once in a generation.”
Likewise, in Massachusetts, legislators congratulated themselves on passing the Criminal Justice Reform Act in April. Like the federal “First Step Act,” the CJRA is a first step.
Still left to be done: ending mandatory sentences, stopping the worst abuses of solitary confinement, eliminating money bail, paroling more parole-eligible people, regulating exorbitant phone charges and funding alternatives to incarceration for primary caretakers and more.
I am thankful for the hard-won changes. I hope, though, they are a first step — not something that happens once in a generation.
Lois Ahrens
Ahrens is the founding director of the Real Cost of Prisons Project, a Northampton-based national organization.