Trump Presidency Does Not Mean End of
Justice Reform; Expect More Commutations
by Derek Gilna
In
response to many requests, we are writing today about what prisoners should
expect from a Trump administration. Fortunately for prisoners on both the state
and federal level, this change, by itself, is just one factor that will impact
prisoners. Sentence relief was not a partisan interest in this election, and
although Democrats like Bernie Sanders talked a lot more about the issue, it
was more in the context of increasing social justice, attacking Wall Street,
and the like. No major player in the Trump campaign opposed sentence relief or
the bills currently before Congress.
But, other people say, Trump was the “law and order” candidate. However,
Clinton
Congressional votes on justice reform were delayed because legislators
didn’t want to “stir the pot” before the election, but the election is now
over. It is likely that there will now be a major push to call the
sentence relief legislation for a vote in the “lame duck” session. Both the
Republicans and Democrats in leadership positions are in favor of the major
bills. Now, with the Republicans controlling the Presidency (as of January 20)
and both houses of Congress, they have no excuse for delaying. We
will help hold their feet to the fire (more on that in the future).
Another positive factor is that Trump campaigned on assisting the common
man, and reached out to the Black and Hispanic communities; he got 2%
more votes than Romney did in 2012. Dr. Ben Carson will have a major position
in this administration. Also remember that all DOJ statistics show that
decreasing incarceration has NOT increased crime, and politicians are tired of
prioritizing prison expenses. The fewer the prisoners, the less expense. Our
guess is that as a businessman, Trump would be receptive to the economic
savings and “smaller government” arguments of a smaller criminal justice
bureaucracy.
We are hopeful that President Obama, before he leaves office, will
accelerate the commutation process. It is an understatement to say that
we are profoundly disappointed about his lack of leadership of pushing sentence
reform, especially when he had Democratic control of Congress in 2008, but
wouldn’t object to a few thousand more over-sentenced prisoners being released.
Finally, there is little public support for the lack of accountability
shown by federal agencies, like the BOP , who hate publicity and
public attention to its many shortcomings. Many faith-based groups have
taken up the cause, and is there any question they could do a better job of
rehabilitation than the BOP has done, for less
money? Trump got 81% of the Evangelical vote, and should be receptive to reform
and shrinking the BOP . Forcing the BOP to follow its own
Compassionate Release policy would be a good place to start.
