President Donald Trump touted his criminal justice reform law as a correction to discriminatory policies put in place by former President Bill Clinton.
Speaking at the 2019 Prison Reform Summit in the White House’s East Room on Monday, Trump said that the First Step Act would reverse the “devastating” harm done to black Americans by Clinton’s 1994 tough-on-crime bill. The law has long been criticized for contributing to the mass incarceration of minorities.
President Trump celebrated the law’s passage alongside ex-convicts who won early release under the First Step Act. Looking forward, Trump announced plans for a Second Step Act to help ex-inmates find work.
Trump undoes Clinton crime laws
Trump signed the First Step Act after it passed both houses of Congress in December. The bill’s passage marked a rare moment of bi-partisan success in an administration riven by bitter factional conflict. Trump hailed the bill as a proud moment of co-operation between people who are “so conservative” and “so liberal.” Its passage was opposed by some Republicans, including Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and then-attorney general Jeff Sessions.
The law erases sentencing provisions put into place by Clinton’s 1994 law which critics say targeted blacks, like harsher sentences for crack cocaine than powder. Trump hailed the First Step Act as a long-overdue correction of injustices in the penal system.
“Finally, the law rolls back provisions of the 1994 Clinton law that was so devastating to so many, and that disproportionately impacted the African American community,” Trump said. “Nobody believes how much, and now they understand it. In less than four months more than 500 people with unfair sentences have been released from prison and are free to begin a new life.”
The law reforms mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug offenses, retroactively applying the Fair Sentencing Act, which eliminates disparities in sentences for crack and powder cocaine offenses. Among other reforms, it also includes provisions to reduce recidivism by helping prisoners rehabilitate to life after prison, including mentorship, employment, and substance abuse treatment programs. Trump said that thousands of inmates have already been enrolled in drug treatment programs.
“I’m thrilled to report that since I’ve signed the First Step Act, more than 16,00 inmates have already enrolled in drug treatment programs. And my administration intends to fully fund and implement this historic law,” Trump said. “It’s happening, and it’s happening fast, and it’s a lot for some people to understand.”
Trump was joined by ex-convicts released under the law, as well as Alice Marie Johnson, an ex-convict whose sentence Trump commuted last spring after a successful lobbying effort by Kim Kardashian.
Trump moves to correct Clinton
Trump also announced further criminal justice reform to help ex-convicts adjust to life after lockup and find work. Trump said the bill would include $88 million to facilitate prisoners’ return to society.
“Today, I am announcing that the Second Step Act will be focused on successful re-entry and reduce unemployment for Americans with past criminal records,” he said. “And that’s what we starting right away.”
Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary have been criticized by the left for the “tough on crime” policy that critics say led to ballooning incarceration rates for blacks over the last three decades. Hillary Clinton faced tough questions over the law when she was running for president in 2016.
The Clintons are not the only Democrats who have been forced to reckon with a “tough on crime” past. Former Vice President Joe Biden, whose candidacy is up in the air over allegations of inappropriately touching women, has been at pains to distance himself from his support of “tough on crime” policies in his past. Biden has been called a leading player in the War on Drugs and a mass incarceration advocate for his role in passing “tough on crime” legislation in the 1980s and 1990s. The former vice president, who once warned about “predators on our streets,” recently apologized for his criminal justice record.
Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) has also had some tough questions to answer about her aggressive criminal justice record as district attorney and attorney general in California in the 1990s.
“I think maybe more than anything else, we’re now proving that we are a nation that believes in redemption,” Trump said.
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