Criminal justice reform gets a strong bipartisan push in the Senate

The U.S. Capitol building.
(Image credit: Zach Gibson/Getty Images)

The Senate voted 82-12 Monday to close debate on the First Step Act and bring the legislation to a final vote in the upper chamber as soon as Tuesday. The House has already passed a different version of the bill and would have to vote again on this version before it could be sent President Trump, who has said he will sign it.

The First Step Act's main concern is sentencing reform, giving judges greater discretion in sentencing for some future convictions. It also makes retroactive a prior sentencing reform law and slightly expands the circumstances under which inmates can earn earlier transfer to pre-release custody. If passed, First Step will only apply to the federal prison system, which means about nine in 10 of America's 2.1 million inmates won't be affected.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.