{"id":389766,"date":"2018-12-19T20:13:29","date_gmt":"2018-12-19T19:13:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/first-step-act-has-sinister-implications-for-the-poor-and-marginalized\/"},"modified":"2018-12-19T20:13:29","modified_gmt":"2018-12-19T19:13:29","slug":"first-step-act-has-sinister-implications-for-the-poor-and-marginalized","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/first-step-act-has-sinister-implications-for-the-poor-and-marginalized\/","title":{"rendered":"First Step Act Has Sinister Implications for the Poor and Marginalized"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Senate passed the First Step Act<\/a><\/span> on Tuesday night in an 87-12 vote after vigorous debate over legislative amendments that would have gutted much of the bill. The legislation now moves to the House for a vote later this week, where it is expected to pass.<\/p>\n

The sentencing reform legislation, shaped in large part by<\/a><\/span> Jared Kushner and Koch Industries attorney Mark Holden, expands job training and other rehabilitation-oriented programming designed to reduce recidivism rates among federal prisoners deemed \u201clow-risk.\u201d It also expands early-release programs and somewhat reins in sentencing laws, including mandatory minimums for drug offenses.<\/p>\n

The legislation\u2019s changes to sentencing laws include allowing judges more flexibility to pass sentences below mandatory minimums for nonviolent drug offenders and reducing mandatory minimums associated with the three-strikes law<\/a><\/span>. The legislation also prohibits the shackling of pregnant prisoners and the use of solitary confinement for juveniles.<\/p>\n

The latest version<\/a><\/span>, which came to the Senate floor via another, unrelated bill, advanced Monday with stripped-down provisions and additional measures demanded by law enforcement groups, including the National Sheriff\u2019s Association and \u201ctough-on-crime\u201d Republicans.<\/p>\n

Senators voted against a set of amendments to the bill Tuesday that reform advocates deemed \u201cpoison pill\u201d amendments ahead of the legislation\u2019s passage. Republican Senators Tom Cotton and John Kennedy authored three amendments that advocates say would have unacceptably whittled down the already feeble legislation.<\/p>\n

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The amendments would have excluded felons from early release, prerelease custody and supervised release; notified victims before a prisoner is allowed to transfer out early; and tracked the effectiveness of the anti-recidivism programs. Advocates, however, say the amendments would have led to further…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Senate passed the First Step Act on Tuesday night in an 87-12 vote after vigorous debate over legislative amendments that would have gutted much of the bill. The legislation now moves to the House for a vote later this week, where it is expected to pass. The sentencing reform legislation, shaped in large part […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-389766","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389766\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}