First Step Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, sometime in the next 2 weeks, we will leave this body and this session, and many of us will return in January for the next one. We will leave many challenges unmet and many problems unsolved, partly because of the partisanship that has paralyzed the Congress, our Federal Government, and many of our States.
The model for what we should adopt as the spirit going forward as we begin that new session is articulated powerfully in a letter that was recently sent to us by 44 former colleagues--10 Republicans, 32 Democrats--coming together to cite the challenges this Nation faces and the need for us to do so in a bipartisan way, coming together in the spirit of what makes this country the greatest in the history of the world.
I hope my colleagues will pay attention to that letter. Yesterday, I entered it into the Congressional Record, and I am proud today to cite parts of it that I think are worthy of our attention. They say--and they are right--that ``we are at an inflection point [in our Nation's history] in which the foundational principles of our democracy and our national security interests are at stake, and the rule of law and the ability of our institutions to function freely and independently must be upheld.''
That is a quote from a letter which puts us on notice that we have a historic obligation to work together, as they have come together in this letter, as they did so often to accomplish great things in this body.
They say:
We are on the eve of the conclusion of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's investigation and the House's commencement of investigations of the president and his administration. The likely convergence of these two events will occur at a time when simmering regional conflicts and global power confrontations continue to threaten our security, economy and geopolitical stability.
Above all the issues that occupy us in these closing days of the session and will confront us as we begin the next, the backdrop is a dangerous world and severe jeopardy to our democracy and rule of law.
They say, and we should keep in mind, that during their service in the Senate, at times we were allies and at other times opponents, but never enemies.
That is the spirit that must move us as we end this session, but, more importantly, as we begin the next session. That commitment to the rule of law that these 44 of our former colleagues have expressed must animate us as well.
The three former colleagues who signed from Connecticut could not be more different. Senators Weicker, Dodd, and Lieberman are different as people, in character, and in background in almost every way, except in their commitment to this country and in their allegiance to that principle of coming together in a bipartisan way.
I hope we will take this lesson. I am far from the most appropriate Member of this body to be lecturing anyone on the spirit of this great institution, but it has impressed me over a long time. My colleagues who were here today supporting criminal justice reform, on both sides of the aisle, embody that spirit as well.
We have a real opportunity on criminal justice reform to do real tangible good. The United States has less than 5 percent of the world's population. Yet, at 2.1 million incarcerated people, we have nearly a quarter of the world's prisoners. Anybody who has been a prosecutor-- and we have many in this body--knows the complexities and the challenges of dealing with crime and ensuring fairness and justice in our criminal system.
As a former U.S. attorney and attorney general of the State of Connecticut, I have been proud and privileged to work with the professionals of our law enforcement community. I have marveled at their dedication, professionalism, and skills. I have been impressed so deeply by our corrections officers and the men and women who every day go to work staffing and manning the prisons and other correctional facilities where the justice system extends its reach over people's lives. My experience has taught me that protecting public safety is not simply a matter of locking up people for the longest possible time.
The Federal Government currently spends billions every year maintaining our prison population--the largest in the world. If we really want to keep people safe, there should be more dedication of resources to State and local enforcement, who patrol our streets, keep our communities safe, and provide role models for many of our young people.
Much of the money that we spend now could be better devoted to more effective investigation, training, and equipping prosecutors with the tools they need, ensuring the most dangerous of the criminals are not only apprehended but kept behind bars and the least dangerous are given an opportunity and a second chance to make good out of their lives.
Targeted innovative programs have been shown to deal with crime more effectively than broad, blunderbuss, lock-them-up kinds of programs. Spending billions of dollars on extended prison sentences for nonviolent criminals may seem tough on crime, but toughness in a war on crime has been shown to be insufficient. More than being tough, we need to be smart. The human and financial costs of mass incarceration simply are not worth the costs. This legislation sets a marker that it is time to make a change.
Opponents of reform want to play on our fears. They want to see every convict as a threat, every ex-convict as a menace. They deny the fundamental premise of our human justice system and our criminal justice--that we must seek rehabilitation and recovery, not just punishment; that people can make good from second chances.
As an example, let me cite Reginald Dwayne Betts, who is a Connecticut resident and a graduate of the Yale Law School. When Betts was 16, he made a serious mistake. He joined a few friends and others he hardly knew, getting into a car with them and joining in a robbery. The driver of the car, a man in his early twenties, was unknown to Betts. He appeared to be in charge. Betts asked him for his pistol. He was given the firearm and told to keep the safety on so there would be no accidental gunshot. They headed to a mall where Betts, holding the gun, signaled for a man to get out of his car. Betts and his friend stole the vehicle and drove away. They were arrested the next day.
That was Betts' crime. He pleaded guilty to carjacking, attempted robbery, and a firearm charge. He faced a maximum sentence of life plus 13 years in prison. At his hearing, Betts apologized. He apologized, first and foremost, to his mother and his family and the man he had terrorized. He expressed genuine remorse for his actions. His apology was heartfelt. He knew he had broken the law. He knew he had to face the consequences, and he owned that responsibility.
For the very real crimes he committed as a 16-year-old, he was sentenced to 9 years in an adult prison. That is hard time. Like so many children, he was tried as an adult and he was imprisoned with grown men.
During that time in prison, Betts read every book he could, he completed a paralegal course, and he learned Spanish. He demonstrated an initiative and willingness to learn which was extraordinary. He embodied the principle of rehabilitation and redemption that our criminal justice system treasures as a vital principle, but the system never gave him an opportunity to reenter society as a productive citizen.
His reading was not part of an education program that gave him college credits or degrees. The paralegal course he took did not produce any certification. The Spanish he learned was not formally recognized by anyone. None of the skills he taught himself would qualify him in the eyes of an employer when he was released from prison as a 24-year-old. Most employers wouldn't even look past the box that he was forced to check identifying himself as an ex-felon.
Fortunately for Betts, and very unusually for him, the literary knowledge he acquired during his time in prison was enough to impress the owner of a bookstore who gave him a job. He enrolled in a community college and graduated with honors. He went to the University of Maryland on a scholarship. He earned a bachelor's degree and a master's in fine arts in poetry, and, eventually, he went to Harvard for a Radcliffe fellowship and published a book of poetry.
Mr. Betts had a criminal record, and it was an ongoing punishment, as it is for every ex-felon and every former convict in America. It follows him everywhere, as it does everyone convicted of a felony, regardless of how much time he served or where he did it. Despite his stellar academic record, the fact that he was an active member of his community and a loving husband and father, he couldn't get a single interview for a job.
Betts tried again. He applied to law school and was accepted at one of the finest institutions of the country. He chose to go to Yale Law School and become an attorney, which he is today.
Betts will be the first to tell you that his extraordinary story is unusual among people who have been convicted of a felony. He has spoken with eloquence and passion about the struggles people like him face, both in prison and once they enter society again.
Most of my life has been spent in law enforcement. Most of my career has been devoted to pursuing cases against people who break the law. I know that justice involves both punishment and redemption. It is supposed to be penance and rehabilitation. We do not discard the people who have committed crimes. We do not abandon them in our country. In principle--but in action, all too often--yes, they are discarded and abandoned, and so they become recidivists, a polite euphemism for people who commit crimes again and again because they are given no constructive alternative.
Some are dangerous and need to be locked away for life or for long periods of time that are necessary to rehabilitate, but we also know that many nondangerous convicts could be released with rehabilitation, skilled training, and education--the kind of training that Mr. Betts had.
We are debating a bill now, the FIRST STEP Act, which tries to bring balance back to our criminal justice system. The current system throws away and discards people like Dwayne Betts--a loss to us and to society. These draconian prison terms provide few incentives for prisoners to prepare for reentry, and that is the gap the FIRST STEP Act seeks to address. It is an injustice it seeks to correct. The bill will allow judges to sentence below the mandatory minimum sentences for low-level nonviolent drug offenders who cooperate with the government.
That is a first step to a more humane and effective system. This bill would make the Fair Sentencing Act retroactive, making it possible for nearly 2,600 Federal prisoners sentenced on racially discriminatory drug laws to petition for a reduced sentence.
That is also a first step toward a fairer, more humane system.
The bill includes prison reform. Under this legislation, prisoners can earn 10 days off their time behind bars for every 30 days of recidivism reduction programming. That is the kind of program that would make reentry into society for people like Dwayne Betts just a little bit easier, and it gives prisoners incentives to earn skills in prison so that they can be productive members of society after they have paid their debt. That is another first step toward a more humane and just system.
The bill includes commonsense reforms--measures like prohibiting the shackling of pregnant prisoners and providing feminine healthcare products to incarcerated women.
It ends the horror of Federal juvenile solitary confinement. It helps tackle the drug epidemic that America faces by expanding opioid and heroine abuse treatment behind bars.
There are other crucial, fiercely negotiated reforms in this bill, all of which seek to take that kind of first step toward a better criminal justice system, and one day, it will be cited as an exemplar of American ideals of liberty and justice.
I urge my colleagues to support this measure. It is a good first step, and it is one we can be proud of supporting on a bipartisan basis in the best spirit of that letter from 44 of our former colleagues, urging us to come together and support common ground where we can improve the greatest Nation in the history of the world.
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