Taking the First Step: The First Step Act and the Path to Criminal Justice Reform

• In Event: Collective Behavior and Social Movements Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 1: Considering History in the Study of Movements

Abstract

There has been the general proclamation that “the criminal justice system is broken.” A
retrospective view of the criminal justice system through research from the 1960s-present
provides the impression that criminal justice trends ebb and flow with political ideology. There
was a target hardening approach to crime in the 1960s due to the increase in drug distribution,
violent behavior, and the frustration with urban problems associated with the root causes of
crime. Currie, Cullen, and others have documented that the marked increase of crime and
conservative movement spearheaded by the Nixon administration focused upon the need to
control and discourage criminal activity. Thus, the creation of an integrated criminal justice
system as defined by a 1967 Presidential Commission and featuring the efforts of Wilson and the
expertise of Blumstein lead to the call for tougher criminal penalties. Cullen (1982) called for a
reconsideration of rehabilitation as a remedy to mass incarceration. The 1990s began a retreat in
favor of offender rehabilitation and the passage of the Second Chance Act (2008). Since 2008,
arrest rates for violent and property crime have decreased and continue to remain relatively low.
In 2018, President Donald Trump signed the First Step Act into law. This legislation specified a
remedy to the increased over sentencing for crack-cocaine arrests initiated by President Bill
Clinton in 1996 with a legally mandated ex-post facto reappraisal of drug convictions,
application of risk-assessment tools in the reconsideration of prior sentencing, increase of good
time considerations for nonviolent offenders, among with other rehabilitative efforts. This paper
offers a socio-historical view of cyclical criminal justice trends along with the advent and impact
of the First Step Act as documented by Eren (2023) and some of the Federal and State statistical
results.

Author

• Lloyd Klein, Laguardia Community College