Prison reform bill marks major GOP shift

A criminal justice bill spearheaded by Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley and Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin - now headed to President Donald Trump by week's end - is the culmination of a major pivot by the Republican Party from the punitive stance of the 1980s to policies that would cut prison sentences for some offenders.

The political and ideological shift comes as crime rates have dropped, the opioid crisis has ravaged the country and prison populations, after reaching record highs, are on the decline.

Many Republicans also are embracing the legalization or decriminalization of marijuana, which is legal in 10 states. Most prominently, former House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, joined the board of a cannabis company earlier this year and favors legalization.

Republicans say the change is a way to right the wrongs of the 1980s by restoring basic fairness to the criminal justice system. It also has a financial component: Republicans said revising the system will save money by moving people convicted of low-level offenses out of prison and into programs that help lessen the chances of reoffending.

'Our goal is to bring fairness and common sense to a system that needs to work better for the American people,” Grassley said Wednesday during a conference call with Iowa reporters. 'Our bill will reduce recidivism, reduce crime and reduce the taxpayers' burden” for maintaining the federal justice system.

The overhaul also is a response to moves on local levels, where similar changes passed in some of the nation's reddest states, including Oklahoma and Texas.

'The cost savings are great, fine. But getting people to a position where they can succeed in life and not ripping apart families? That fits in the basic confines of what conservatism is,” said Jason Pye, vice president of legislative affairs for FreedomWorks, a conservative think tank.

The Senate bill passed on a vote of 87 to 12. It is expected to pass the House, where Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has expressed his support, as has Trump.

Grassley called it a 'once-in-a-generation opportunity” to create 'historic” reforms in the federal justice system.

The bill would change the way the federal prison system operates by helping inmates earn reduced sentences and attempts to lower the number of offenders who return to prison.

When signed into law, the bill will be a signature accomplishment of Grassley's Judiciary Committee, which he is leaving to instead lead the Finance Committee.

The measure would overhaul several sentencing laws, including decreasing the 'three strikes” penalty for drug offenders to 25 years instead of life.

The changes apply only to federal inmates, not to those in state or local prisons or jails.

As such, it will not change Iowa's second worst in the nation ranking for racial disparity in state prisons. According to the Sentencing Project, black people are more than 12 times as likely as white people to face state charges in Iowa, the second highest disparity in the nation behind New Jersey.

The federal measure would retroactively reduce sentencing disparities for people convicted of crimes involving crack and powder cocaine, a change affecting about 2,000 federal inmates.

The discrepancies in penalties for the two drugs led to a major racial disparity in how drug offenders were sentenced, with primarily young black men serving long sentences for non-violent crack cocaine crimes, and mostly white people receiving lighter penalties for powder cocaine offenses.

Many Republicans have embraced treating drug addiction as a public health issue rather than a criminal justice one, with a realization that authorities cannot arrest their way out of the opioid problem.

Overhauling the criminal justice system has been one of the top priorities of the network aligned with billionaire industrialist Charles Koch and like-minded donors. The network, which leans libertarian with a small-government, free-market agenda, has pushed for bipartisan support for sweeping policy changes since the Obama administration, advocating for a shift toward prioritizing rehabilitation and reducing recidivism.

The Washington Post and Bill Lukitsch of the Quad City Times contributed to this report.