One of the greatest successes of President Donald J. Trump’s first term was passage of the First Step Act into law.
This was a major, bipartisan reform that focused on returning fairness, common sense, and effectiveness to our justice system – while making our communities safer and more prosperous.
I worked closely with the administration to develop and build support for the law, because fixing our prison and justice systems has been a career-long effort of mine.
As I wrote in the Washington Post in November 2018, I strongly supported the First Step Act because it aimed to fix some well-meaning but misguided laws which I and many others supported when I served in Congress.
It amended overly harsh and disproportionate sentences for people who had been imprisoned for crack cocaine addiction. It put in place robust rehabilitation, substance abuse, and learning programs so people who served their time left with the skills and habits to be law-abiding, healthy, productive members of society. It offered important second chances for those convicted for nonviolent offenses – many of which were directly related to drug addiction. And it had a fiscal-minded goal to reduce the cost and population of our prison system, which costs taxpayers roughly $80 billion a year.
By nearly all measures, the law was a resounding success. In June 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice reported the number of people rearrested after being released under the First Step Act’s provisions was 9.7 percent. This number – known as the recidivism rate – was 46.2 percent before the law took effect in 2018. This means tens of thousands more Americans are now living law-abiding lives. When you consider what this means for their families, communities, and their own lives, the impact is remarkable.