Criminal justice reform measure wins Senate panel approval

By Julia Harte

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Mandatory minimum prison sentences for low-level drug offenders would be reduced under a measure approved by a U.S. Senate committee on Thursday, marking a step forward in Washington for advocates of overhauling criminal justice standards.

Three-time non-violent offenders would be among those covered by the sentencing changes, while new recidivism reduction programs would also be set up, under the bill, backed in a bipartisan 15-5 Senate Judiciary Committee vote.

The legislation, the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act, will move next to the full Senate, where its outlook is uncertain as it competes with pressing debt and budget issues for time and attention.

President Barack Obama has made criminal justice reform a focus late in his administration. In July, he became the first sitting president to visit a federal prison. He said on Thursday at a White House forum that the country was at "a unique moment" for bipartisan efforts to reform criminal justice.

The Senate measure would also set new mandatory minimums for some federal crimes, including interstate domestic violence, and prohibit housing juvenile offenders in solitary confinement.

Some provisions, including lower mandatory minimum sentences for prior drug felons, would be retroactive so some federal inmates now serving time could see their sentences reduced.

Similar changes by the U.S. Sentencing Commission will result next month in the early release of about 6,000 federal inmates. A separate clemency initiative backed by Obama has resulted in early release of 89 other nonviolent drug offenders.

The bill that cleared committee on Thursday "preserves sentences necessary to keep violent offenders and career criminals out of our communities while addressing over-incarceration concerns and working to reduce recidivism,” said Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, Republican.

Criminal justice reform advocates praised the bill’s passage as the start of a process of undoing crime policies from the past few decades that they say have been counterproductive.

“It’s amazing the '180' this country has done from the failed policies of the 1980s to now,” Holly Harris, executive director of U.S. Justice Action Network, told Reuters.

“The thought behind the war on drugs had merit at the time. But when one in three American adults now has a criminal record, we’ve gone too far,” Harris said.

The committee approved the bill the day after the formation of a new group of 130 law enforcement leaders from across the country who support reducing crime and incarceration.

(Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Steve Orlofsky)

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