At a time when Democrats and Republicans in Congress can’t agree on just about anything, there is one issue that unites them: the urgent need for criminal justice reform. A Senate bill on the issue has attracted an impressive 37 co-sponsors from both sides of the aisle. The Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act has gained support from figures as politically diverse as the Koch brothers and President Barack Obama for its goals of reforming mandatory minimum sentences, reducing prison populations, and rehabilitating prisoners.
One aspect of the bill, however, has attracted much less attention: It would require the government to rate federal prisoners’ risk of committing a future crime, and treat them differently according to those ratings. The bill calls for the attorney general to develop a new formula for predicting future behavior or adopt an existing tool. The Bureau of Prisons would then use the algorithm to score and classify inmates.
[For more of this story, written by Lauren Kirchner, go to https://psmag.com/should-we-ra...d209af449#.f56k06wz9]
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