Sunday, Nov. 25, 2018 | 2 a.m.
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President Donald Trump received some rare positive media coverage Nov. 14, and with good reason.
That day, Trump vowed to support the criminal justice reform legislation package known as the First Step Act, which is aimed at helping dial back decades of unfair and overly punitive policies that have made the U.S. the incarceration capital of the world. In supporting good bipartisan policy over playing to his base, Trump did the right thing.
Now, the Democrats who were elected to Congress eight days earlier should be thinking the same way on the issue.
Although they’ll justifiably be expected to provide a much-needed check on Trump, this is one of several areas where they need to work with him.
The reform package isn’t perfect, but there’s definitely plenty to like about it. Among its provisions, it would give judges more discretion to bypass mandatory minimum sentences for some offenses and to reduce sentencings for drug-related violations. It would also lower the minimum sentence for “three strikes” convicts from life to 25 years.
These are all steps in the right direction — back toward rationality, in other words. In a shameful chapter in American history, criminal justice policies dating to the Reagan-era War on Drugs have kept prisons full despite the crime rate falling to about half of its level from a generation ago.
Today, there are 2.2 million Americans behind bars, and the incarceration rate has only fallen by about 1 percent per year since 2008, despite the ongoing drop in crime.
Worst of all, the policies have led to a staggeringly disproportionate number of African-Americans being incarcerated. Blacks are five times more likely than whites to be imprisoned, largely because of sentencing policies for drug crimes. Although blacks and whites use drugs at similar rates, blacks are imprisoned six times more often than whites for violations.
Meanwhile, the social effects and human costs of these policies have been immeasurable.
So again, Trump was right in getting behind the reform legislation.
Assuming it doesn’t pass by the end of the year, Democrats should work across the aisle and with the White House to work out any kinks in it and get it passed.
Yes, the voters who sent Democrats to Congress were in many cases reacting to Trump’s extremism, and will expect them to oppose him on issues like his impractical border wall and destructive tariffs.
But overall, those voters were elected to help rebuild a constructive, problem-solving approach to governing. The Mitch McConnell mentality of all-out opposition, as memorialized in his comment about working to make Barack Obama a one-term president, must go.
The criminal justice act is a perfect opportunity for Democrats to start making a change.
This isn’t a matter of getting a win for either party — or, conversely, dooming the other party to defeat. It’s a matter of helping right a longstanding wrong.
