A real chance at criminal justice reform

Perhaps it’s a coincidence that a new criminal justice reform proposal has emerged in the Senate less than a week after the departure of Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

But Sessions — a devout reactionary on matters of criminal justice — never met a reform effort he didn’t want to smother. As a senator, he fought against comprehensive overhaul like the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act.

Now that Sessions is gone, a bipartisan collection of senators is pushing a plan that addresses some of the core shortcomings of an earlier House version of the legislation that was supported by the White House. The hope is to move the bill during the lame duck session, before the new Congress, with its newly Democratic House majority, takes hold in January.

For this to happen, lawmakers say President Donald Trump must embrace the measure and nudge congressional Republicans to do the same. After being lobbied by Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, and various senators, Trump did just that at a White House event on Wednesday, praising members of both parties for ‘‘pouring their hearts’’ into the compromise, signaling that he indeed wants to make progress on critical issues that enjoy broad support. Lawmakers from both parties should follow suit.

A crucial feature of the Senate plan, called the First Step Act, is the inclusion of so-called front-end reforms with the goal of a more rational sentencing process. The House version, passed in May, focused solely on “back end” reforms, such as improving prison conditions and easing inmates’ re-entry into society. But tending to the existing prison population without tempering the draconian sentencing laws that caused that population to explode in recent decades is, as Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has put it, ‘‘naïve and unproductive.’’ That’s why reform advocates saw the House bill as a cheap attempt by Congress to move past the issue without addressing its core problem.

The Senate bill would reduce mandatory sentencing guidelines for certain drug crimes, allow judges greater wiggle room in sentencing nonviolent drug offenders, do away with the “stacking” provision that tacks on years for the use of a firearm during the commission of a crime and, at long last, make retroactive the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, which reduced the sentencing gap between crack and powder-cocaine offenses.

Details of the bill began making the rounds early this week, and the initial reviews among advocates were solid, if not entirely glowing. Most notably, some reformers expressed disappointment that the bulk of sentencing changes would not apply retroactively, leaving thousands of inmates serving excessive terms under the old guidelines. But even the skeptical agreed it was a major step forward.

Further fueling optimism about the legislation’s future, last week the Fraternal Order of Police endorsed its sentencing reforms.

Republicans have a clear incentive to act now, before they lose control of the House. And if Democrats resist the temptation to let the perfect be the enemy of the good, they can seize this opening to make progress on an enduringly vexing challenge.