President Trump announcing the First Step Act at the White House. (Credit: White House)

Criminal Justice Reform Is Spreading Across The Country. But Is It Enough to Dismantle Mass Incarceration?

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A president besieged from the outset of his presidency relished in a rare legislative victory.

What the White House, Congress, and advocacy groups accomplished in pushing the First Step Act, billed as a major criminal justice bill, over the finish line was “groundbreaking” and “historic,” Trump said.

“Nobody thought they could do it,” he said. “And we got it done.”

For all of the president’s bluster and hyperbolic tendencies, he was correct about one thing: Enough Republicans and Democrats supported the bill for it to earn passage in a deeply partisan and recalcitrant Congress.

The First Step Act, meant to promote early release for federal inmates, marks a significant shift for a nation still grappling with the consequences a generation of tough-on-crime policies that have fueled mass incarceration.

Currently, more than 2.3 million people are incarcerated in the United States, and 10 million cycle in and out jail each year, according to the Prison Policy Initiative, a nonprofit and non-partisan research organization. The majority of people in local jails are being held without bail or simply can’t afford it. And of course, there’s the racial discrepancy, as African Americans are imprisoned five times higher than their white counterparts.