Tag Archive for: Prison System

Trump’s First Step Act Was a Monumental Success. His New Administration Has a Chance to Build On It.

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Every April since President Donald Trump signed the first proclamation in 2018, Second Chance Month has served as an annual reminder to recognize the potential of people with criminal records to turn their lives around. The First Step Act of 2018 remains one of President Trump’s most important legacies from his first term. It has been a tremendous success by virtually any measure, and it’s part of a critical but underserved area of legislative reform.

What’s more, it was bipartisan and remains extraordinarily popular.

Polling indicates that most Americans recognize our criminal justice system needs reform — perhaps because Americans also recognize that the success or failure of our criminal justice system has direct implications for them personally.

A striking 81% of likely voters in 2024 said they’d support reforms to the criminal justice system, with the numbers almost equally high across political affiliations. More than three-quarters of Republicans signaled support. Upwards of 80% of Democrats and Independents did as well.

That’s because Americans understand that a functioning criminal justice system has little to do with ideology. It’s about ensuring the institutions we rely on to keep us safe, free, and flourishing do what they were originally created to do.

Continuing to refine and modernize our justice system not only offers Trump a widely-supported opportunity to better the nation; it’s also a chance for him to further cement his legacy as a transformational reformer of American government.

There’s already a promising roster of legislation filed in Congress that would serve as a worthy follow-up to President Trump’s successes in 2018. Take the Federal Prison Oversight Act, the Clean Slate Act, and the Safer Supervision Act as examples. All three would serve as crucial steps toward lasting, system-level reform of our criminal justice system.

The Federal Prison Oversight Act created an oversight body to inspect and regulate federal prisons — but it hasn’t gone into practical effect yet, due in part to funding issues.

Safer, more effective, more accountable federal prisons wouldn’t only benefit the prison staff and population. It would benefit us all. After all, where do incarcerated men and women go after serving their term? They return to us as neighbors. As co-workers. As fellow citizens.

As such, we must ensure that our correctional facilities are, in fact, corrective, not merely punitive.

The American criminal justice system was never meant to become a multibillion-dollar taxpayer-funded industry. And it was never meant to be a self-perpetuating parallel state. It was intended to protect the common good, mete out justice, and return citizens to their communities after they had served a rightly-determined sentence in reparation for their crime.

We should hold people accountable for their mistakes, as we owe it to victims and the public to ensure there are consequences for causing harm. But when we make the path of a law-abiding life more attainable for those who have demonstrated their commitment to rehabilitation, we create a society that is safer and more prosperous for everyone. This should ring true to all of us, regardless of political inclination.

Employment is one of the biggest challenges for those reentering society from jail or prison. Workforce training programs tailored for those returning from incarceration should be expanded and fully funded. Technology offers promising new opportunities, with one study finding that the use of a virtual reality interface to train people in prison on job interviewing contributed to more job offers and lower recidivism upon release.

Tens of millions of Americans have a criminal record, including half of those who are unemployed. Too often, that record functions as a life sentence long after their official sentence has ended. When criminal records are barriers to employment, housing, and education, millions are kept from ever fully reintegrating into society.

One way to alleviate these barriers is to institutionalize automatic record-clearing for eligible individuals through “Clean Slate” laws, which automatically expunge or seal low-level records after a certain period of time for those whose arrests don’t result in convictions or who have remained crime-free. While a dozen states — like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Utah — have enacted this policy, nationwide adoption would eliminate bureaucratic red tape preventing people from moving past their records and contributing more to society.

In addition to implementing job training programs and Clean Slate laws, Congress is also considering the Safer Supervision Act, which would help streamline and reform an overwhelmed and arcane system trying to execute and make decisions about post-incarceration supervision. The Safer Supervision Act would reduce the size of the government, reduce costs, and even reduce recidivism.

Second Chance Month is a useful tool to raise awareness, but it should be seen as the floor, not the ceiling. By implementing policies that support job-training, record-clearing, and community reintegration, we can see to it that second chances are more than just feel-good ceremonies for one month on the calendar. We as a nation — and Trump as our president — have a chance to make our justice system just again.

AUTHOR

Timothy Head

Timothy Head is the president and CEO of Unify.US and the former executive director at the Faith & Freedom Coalition.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Harris Supported Taxpayer-Funded Trans Surgeries in 2019, Called ‘Transition Treatment … a Medical Necessity’

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The Kamala Harris campaign kept her policies (and person) away from the mainstream media for so long that the media went snooping through the past. On Monday, CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski first reported Harris’s support for taxpayer-funded gender transition surgeries on federal prisoners and detained illegal immigrants, revealed in a candidate questionnaire she filled out for the ACLU during her abortive 2019 presidential campaign.

On the questionnaire, Harris marked the “yes” box in answer the following question: “As President will you use your executive authority to ensure that transgender and nonbinary people who rely on the state for medical care — including those in prison and immigration detention — will have access to comprehensive treatment associated with gender transition, including all necessary surgical care? If yes, how will you do so?”

The questionnaire also allowed candidates to explain their answer in 500 words or less. In the space provided, Harris wrote, “It is important that transgender individuals who rely on the state for care receive the treatment they need, which includes access to treatment associated with gender transition. That’s why, as Attorney General, I pushed the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to provide gender transition surgery to state inmates.”

She continued, “I support policies ensuring that federal prisoners and detainees are able to obtain medically necessary care for gender transition, including surgical care, while incarcerated or detained. Transition treatment is a medical necessity, and I will direct all federal agencies responsible for providing essential medical care to deliver transition treatment.”

“This questionnaire is really an interesting snapshot-in-time of that 2019 Democratic primary,” said Kaczynski. “Kamala Harris was trying to get to the left of [Independent Vermont Senator] Bernie Sanders. She was trying to get to the left of [Massachusetts Democratic Senator] Elizabeth Warren, and you really see that in a lot of these answers.” In a now-archived ranking, GovTrack.us rated Harris as the senator with the most liberal voting record in 2019.

Some snapshots can be consistent across time, as this one appears to be. Harris’s 2024 campaign finally published a page on policy issues on the eve of the one-and-only presidential debate (to quote Edna Mode, “Coincidence? I think not”). In a section on “fundamental freedoms … at stake in this election,” the Harris campaign touted their candidate’s record of LGBT advocacy as far back as 2004.

In particular, the Harris campaign said their candidate would “fight to pass the Equality Act to enshrine anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQI+ Americans in health care, housing, education, and more into law.” This extends the continuity because, as a senator in 2019, Harris was an original cosponsor of the Equality Act. While the campaign website elaborates no further, this far-reaching legislation would “virtually do away with sex-segregated spaces” by allowing “biological men into women’s private spaces,” Family Research Council director of Federal Affairs for Family and Religious Liberty Mary Beth Waddell warned in 2019.

This means that, under the Equality Act, male prisoners who identify as women would have a statutory right to be housed in a women’s prison, wrote Abigail Shrier. This is already law in Harris’s native California, where at least 47 biological males, including violent criminals and sexual offenders, were housed in women’s prisons, as of March 2023. Harris’s pledge to provide gender transition procedures to trans-identifying prisoners at taxpayers’ expense not only implies such a permissive housing policy, in which inmates get to self-define their gender, but it takes it one step further by placing the state’s endorsement behind their gender transition.

While Harris’s policy-light campaign has not explicitly reaffirmed her 2019 endorsement of taxpayer-funded gender transition surgeries for trans-identifying prisoners, its brief comments are consistent with that position. Fellow Senate progressive Sanders said Sunday that Harris was not “abandoning her ideals” but merely “trying to be pragmatic and doing what she thinks is right in order to win the election.”

Even if Harris wanted to change her mind, the transgender lobby would not let her. This summer, left-wing activists poured out their wrath against the Biden-Harris White House over a statement softly opposing gender transition surgeries for minors. The administration quickly folded to the pressure and backpedaled from that position to appease the transgender lobby. If Harris became president, nothing in her record suggests that she would respond differently to pressure from the transgender lobby.

In her 2019 questionnaire, Harris also promised to provide taxpayer-funded gender transition surgeries to detained illegal immigrants. However, at the rate the Biden-Harris administration is releasing detained immigrants into the U.S., this seems like a moot point. It would be rendered even further irrelevant if Harris fulfilled another pledge from her 2019 questionnaire, namely to “end … immigrant detention facilities.”

Also in 2019, Harris also pledged to codify abortion-on-demand, “eliminate the Hyde amendment,” “legalize marijuana,” end cash bail, defund ICE, provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, and oppose legislation to impede or prohibit anti-Israel protests.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

‘Misogyny’: 47 Biological Males Allowed in Women’s Prisons in California

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On Wednesday, The Post Millennial reported that 47 biological males who identify as transgender have been allowed entry into women’s prisons in California since the state’s Transgender Respect, Agency and Dignity Act (SB-132) went into effect in 2021. Experts are decrying the policy, pointing to the dangers posed to women’s safety and privacy.

Citing data from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) website, the story notes that “as of Feb. 26, 2023, 349 people housed in male institutions have requested to be housed in a female institution. 47 were approved for transfer, 21 were denied, and 35 changed their minds. The remaining requests are being reviewed.”

Amanda Stulman, director of the U.S. chapter of the advocacy organization Keep Prisons Single Sex, pointed to the unique dangers that female inmates face as a result of California’s SB-132.

“Keep Prisons Single Sex remains horrified that the transfer of criminal men into women’s prison in California has continued,” she told The Washington Stand. “The impact of a law such as SB-132 should have been obvious when it was under consideration. Now that the law has been in place for over two years, California is able to see its impact: As of 2022, over 33% of the men seeking to transfer under this law under the guise of ‘gender identity’ are registered sex offenders. Over a quarter have been convicted of a sex offense. These are substantially higher percentages than the general prison population.”

Stulman went on to highlight additional reports coming out of the California prison system since the law’s implementation.

“There have been allegations of pregnancies and sexual assaults, of the introduction of condoms and other birth control and information about options in the event of pregnancy,” she said. “Men who have been moved under this law include murderers and sexual offenders. California needs to admit this law was a mistake and walk it back.”

Instances of trans-identifying men assaulting women in female prisons have occurred as recently as last April, when a biological male who identified as female was sentenced to seven years in prison after he was convicted of raping a female inmate in the women’s section of the jail on Rikers Island in New York.

The problem does not appear to be contained to the United States. The Times in the U.K. recently reported that seven sexual assaults have occurred in women’s prisons by transgender-identifying convicts, and that trans-identifying males are “five times more likely to carry out sex attacks on inmates at women’s jails than other prisoners are,” according to official figures.

Male criminals convicted of sexual crimes are also being permitted into women’s prisons in Canada. On Wednesday, The Post Millennial reported that a male convicted sex offender who raped a 13-year-old girl and who was “classified as a dangerous offender” has been transferred to a women’s prison in Ontario after identifying as trans. This latest instance is just one of multiple examples of biological males convicted of sexual crimes being allowed into women’s prisons in Canada since 2017.

Dr. Jennifer Bauwens, the director of the Center for Family Studies at Family Research Council, was candid in her assessment of California’s controversial prison policy.

“The word that comes to mind is ‘misogyny,’” she told The Washington Stand. “That’s actually what this is about: the hatred of women instead of the protection of women in prison. Some people could write off this population just because they’ve committed crimes and [say] they’re not deserving of protection — I totally disagree with that. But I think this is just another example of a disregard for women and a preference for the desires of men. Whether people are aware of that at a conscious level or not, that’s what is manifesting.”

Bauwens, who formerly worked as a clinician providing trauma-focused treatment and has studied the effects of trauma, pointed out how the policy will be particularly detrimental to women prisoners.

“This is an old study, but it still speaks to who is in a women’s prison,” she noted. “‘One key finding from this research is that incarcerated women are more likely to report extensive histories of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse—between 77 and 90%.’ … And the prevalence rates of childhood abuse [are] much higher among incarcerated women in comparison to the general population. This study was specifically looking at the California prison population.”

“[Women prisoners] are more susceptible to committing crimes based on abuse histories,” Bauwens continued. “When someone’s experienced childhood abuse, they’re more likely to act out in delinquent behaviors or abuse substances. … There have been recommendations from different public health researchers that have suggested that for female prisoners, trauma therapy should be a part of their time in prison because of this knowledge.”

She went on question the vetting process by which male inmates are allowed into female prisons.

“So you have all that going on in the background, and then you’re going to [add male convicted criminals]? We don’t know of the criteria for a transfer. What kind of background checks are they looking at? What’s the reason that they’re in prison in the first place, and is that considered? Have they had a violent or sexual offense? Does that sideline them from transfer? I don’t think so, based on previous reporting.”

“It speaks to the level of misogyny going on in this thought process,” Bauwens concluded. “There really is no thought about protecting women from further harm. Women should do their time for their crime, but not be victimized in the process.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.