Last week, landmark “Clean Slate” legislation to automatically seal the records of certain low-level offenders became law in Pennsylvania. Sponsored by Representative Sheryl Delozier, a Republican who represents part of Cumberland County, House Bill 1419 garnered broad bipartisan support in its passage through both chambers of the General Assembly and into its signing by Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf.

In 2015, Utah legislators passed and Governor Gary Hulburt signed into law a package, HB 348, to reform its state criminal justice system. This package included new concepts such as prioritizing prison space for people with serious and violent offenses as well as strengthening community supervision, both of which have yielded substantial public safety returns.

Last week, the FIRST STEP Act, federal prison reform legislation sponsored by Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), sailed through the House by a vote of 360-59. The bill would create a risk and needs assessment in federal prisons to guide the implementation of incentivised recidivism-reduction programming for prisoners. More broadly, the legislation is focused on reducing recidivism by aiding reentry into society in multiple ways and implements other measures that contribute to this goal outside of the new programming provisions.

In his State of the Union address one week ago today, President Donald Trump touted the widespread successes of tax reform legislation as well as his impressive rollback of regulatory burdens. FreedomWorks applauds those successes, and encourages Congress to advance further successes of the president’s agenda, as presented in his speech.

The movement towards reforming our prison system to lower crime rates and reduce recidivism is helping to shed additional light on absurd occupational licensing laws around the country.

On behalf of FreedomWorks activists nationwide, I urge you to contact your representative and encourage him or her to cosponsor the Prison Reform and Redemption Act, H.R. 3356, introduced by Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.). This bill would require the Attorney General to develop an offender risk and needs assessment system and incentivizes offenders to lower their risk of recidivism.