A group of conservative lawmakers are threatening to block a massive reform that can significantly change the U.S. criminal justice system. According to members of the opposition, who are led by Arkansas' Republican Senator Tom Cotton, the reform is like an experiment that could end up with disastrous results.
The reform in the prison system is being pushed by President Barack Obama's administration and has already gathered steady support from other Republican senators. Through this, inmates may get the chance to receive shorter sentences. The proposed bill for the reform aims to achieve this by allowing the cases of qualified inmates to be revisited by the same judge who handed them their sentences, according to Politico.
Critics of the bill, however, referred to the proposed reforms as a massive social experiment designed to test leniency on criminals. At a congressional meeting, Cotton and his fellow supporters, including Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, warned that giving dangerous criminals shorter sentences increases the safety risks of the public.
"If supporters of this bill and President Obama are wrong, if this grand experiment in criminal leniency goes awry, how many lives will be ruined?" Cotton said during the event according to ABC News Go. "How many dead? How much of the anti-crime progress of the last generation will be wiped away for the next?"
The opposition led by Cotton poses as a serious threat to the bill's chances of getting passed as it could leave Congress divided. Despite this, proponents of the bill are still confident that it will eventually get the necessary votes for approval by persuading its critics to support it through its other reform features.
Aside from its sentence reductions, the bill also proposes new programs to reintegrate inmates into society, which is actually a piece of the legislature that Cotton and his colleagues approve of. Advocates of the criminal justice reform, including the bill's authors South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, Texas Senator John Coryn and Utah Senator Mike Lee are also thinking of ways to increase support for the bill. Recently, they sent out a letter showing the support they have received from various sectors including law enforcement and corporate groups, The Atlantic reported.
