On Monday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) put out a release outlining its intentions for and the status of the implementation of the First Step Act. Signed into law on December 21, 2018, the First Step Act is a comprehensive overhaul of the federal prison system, run by the Bureau of Prisons. Certainly, it is encouraging to see the department taking affirmative steps toward implementing the law.

On behalf of FreedomWorks’ activist community, I urge you to contact your senators and ask them to support the First Step Act, S. 3649, and to co-sponsor and whip YES when approached by Senate Republican leadership.

As the 2018 midterm elections approach, voters in all 50 states will cast their ballots for members of Congress and many will cast their ballots for senators. Some ballots will also include measures independent of the national elections. These are, for example, gubernatorial races, as well as ballot initiatives to amend state constitutions.

The effort to reform the federal prison system is gaining a lot of attention. President Donald Trump has expressed support for prison reform on multiple occasions, including a mention in his State of the Union address and, most recently, during a meeting with a group of African-American pastors. President Trump has also expressed a willingness to include sentencing reform in the prison reform bill.

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.

Retroactive application of the Fair Sentencing Act (FSA) which became law in 2010 and reduced the sentencing disparity for crack and powder cocaine from 100-to-1 to 18-to-1 has been a hotly contested issue in the criminal justice space. The primary concern from those opposed to retroactivity, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions, is that allowing offenders to petition the court for a review and reduction in their sentence could result in violent criminals being released to the streets, putting public safety at risk.