Law360 has this lengthy new article, headlined "Advocates Frustrated By Biden's Silence On Justice Reform," that provides a lengthy review of various criminal justice reform efforts to date by the Biden Administration. As the headline suggests, advocates are so far underwhelmed. Here are excerpts from a piece worth reading in full:
One of President Joe Biden's most powerful tools for advancing criminal justice reform is his voice and yet, despite his campaign promises, he has been mostly silent on the issue while in office, frustrating criminal justice reform advocates.
Advocates for ending mass incarceration and mandatory minimum sentencing would have liked Biden to do more than just talk about criminal justice reform in his first six months in office, but they are even more frustrated by the fact that he isn't loudly advocating for reform and isn't letting people know when he will act on his reform promises....
Criminal justice advocates acknowledge that Biden started his presidential term with a full plate of pressing issues to address: the COVID-19 pandemic, an economic downturn, extreme political division and a migrant crisis at the southern border that could have sidelined criminal justice reform in his administration's early days. And now, six months later, Biden's administration is still grappling with these issues in addition to combating a spike in homicides and surges in coronavirus cases in areas with low vaccination rates.
But advocates and experts say that Biden could at least publicly support more criminal justice reform legislation that has been introduced in Congress and dispel myths being perpetuated by some Republican lawmakers that releasing people from prison increases crime....
Biden alluded to criminal justice reform in his inaugural speech and in a presidential address marking his first 100 days in office. He also included snippets of criminal justice reform in his plans for revitalizing jobs, helping American families and fighting gun violence....
Udi Ofer, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's justice division, said that Biden's crime prevention plan doesn't recognize that the majority of what police do is arrest people for low-level offenses like drug possession, and these arrests don't stop homicides and gun violence. "President Biden has invested so much political capital in laying out his crime prevention plan, and we have not seen the same sort of commitment laid out for criminal justice reform and for police accountability," Ofer said.
A lot of people are waiting to hear him say loud and clear that he recognizes the flaws in the justice system and genuinely wants to help fix them.
Some experts say that Biden's silence on criminal justice reform could be a calculated political move to straddle party lines and keep members of his own party together. Republicans and Democrats are in disagreement about police reform. Progressive Democrats are calling for defunding the police and older party members fear that is too radical a move, according to Jacinta Gau, a criminal justice professor at the University of Central Florida....
Rumblings of Biden's early plans for handling criminal justice reform-related issues has already sparked outcry from lawmakers and advocates. A coalition of 20 advocacy organizations sent a July 19 letter to Biden urging him not to reimprison people who were released to home confinement during the pandemic and instead commute their sentences....
Even though advocates and experts want Biden to move more quickly on criminal justice reform, they also don't want him to make reactionary "tough on crime" policies that have been devastating for communities of color and led to mass incarceration. However, they say Biden and his administration don't need to "reinvent the wheel" on criminal justice reform because organizations and scholars have already done the research on what works and what doesn't work. The administration just needs to follow their lead, they say.
Though I am not surprised it goes unmentioned in this article, I have to bring up again in this context that the Biden Administration has so far missed the opportunity to appoint reform-minded persons to the US Sentencing Commission. Of course, as I have lamented in post after post, the Biden Administration has so far failed to appoint anyone to the USSC. As I stressed here, the US Sentencing Commission, when functional, has the power and the ability to be a significant agent for federal criminal justice reform. But, unless the Biden Administration makes a lot of appointments very soon, I fear this important agency might not be functional until 2022 or perhaps even later. Sigh.
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