Prison act would do more harm than good
Despite support from both sides of the aisle, the FIRST STEP Act includes serious missteps toward injustice. Before passing the bill, the Senate needs to review and reject harmful policies that will lead to devastating unintended consequences for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people and their loved ones.
This country’s criminal legal system harms people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds and economic classes — disproportionately harming black, brown and immigrant people. The act does not meaningfully address or eradicate that harm.
Sure, the proposed bill does some good. But if President Donald Trump truly cared about the good proposals in the bill, he could enact them by executive order. He doesn’t need legislation to stop shackling women during pregnancy, provide compassionate release, or establish good time.
After years of demanding an end to mass incarceration and gaining wide popular support for that goal, we see FIRST STEP as an effort to swap out one means of oppression for a new form of control with electronic monitoring, or “e-carceration,” and risk assessments.
The act will do nothing to dismantle the prison-industrial complex. The same corporate giants profiting from mass incarceration will be poised to feed at the public trough by increasing “re-entry services.”
In fact, they have already moved into the business of electronic monitoring and surveillance. Today, these robber barons make money by keeping prison beds full; tomorrow they will profit by keeping more and more people electronically shackled.
There is no justification for racially biased risk assessments and electronic surveillance technology that will trigger a return to prison or make our family members wardens. The FIRST STEP Act sets in motion dangerous precedents with enduring ramifications. We cannot afford to take this precarious first step toward increased e-carceration where neighborhoods are turned into digital cell blocks.
Deanna Hoskins is president and CEO of Just Leadership USA.