On Monday, Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee argued his case for criminal justice reform at a meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Senator spoke on the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2015, a bill he co-sponsored.
The bill does not erase mandatory minimums for federal drug convictions from the law books. Lee said that the legislation would focus on creating smarter, more just sentencing.
“More than two years ago, Sen. Durbin and I teamed up on this issue and we first introduced the Smarter Sentencing Act,” Lee said. “I believe we can make federal sentencing more fair and more efficient without doing anything to undermine safety. In fact, I believe we can do this in a way that will actually enhance public safety by increasing the efficiencies and, therefore, the effectiveness of our federal criminal justice system.”
Cosponsors of the bill include Democrats Charles Schumer and Cory Booker of New York and New Jersey, respectively. At the committee meeting, Lee said that the bill would help decrease recidivism by investing in rehabilitation.
“The Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act achieves that goal by doing some things to reform the most severe penalties that often lead to disproportionate sentences by expanding the availability of the safety valve and by increasing opportunities and incentives for rehabilitative programming within the prison system for those that are already there,” he said.
According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, there are nearly 94,000 federal inmates imprisoned on drug offenses nationwide.
