Barr: Justice Dept. is ‘all in’ on criminal justice overhaul

Associated Press

EDGEFIELD, S.C.

Leroy Nolan has spent the past 26 years behind bars at a federal prison for a drug conviction. In the prison factory, he works making T-shirts, backpacks and other products that are later sold to government agencies, nonprofits and others.

But what has become a decadeslong routine for Nolan behind the barbed wire, steel gates and concrete walls of FCI Edgefield, a prison in rural South Carolina, will all change on Friday when he walks out the front door. The 67-year-old is among about 2,200 federal inmates who will be released that day by the federal Bureau of Prisons under a criminal-justice reform measure signed into law last year by President Donald Trump.

The measure, known as the First Step Act, gives judges more discretion when sentencing some drug offenders, eases mandatory minimum sentences and encourages inmates to participate in programs designed to reduce the risk of recidivism, with credits that can be used to gain an earlier release.

On a visit this past week to Edgefield – a facility with a medium-security prison and minimum-security camp – Attorney General William Barr took a firsthand look at some of the programs in place, from computer skills to cooking, auto-mechanic training and factory work. He met with prison staff and a handful of inmates, including some who will be released early under the First Step Act.

Barr’s visit signaled a major policy shift since his first stint as attorney general in the early 1990s, when he exuded a tough-on-crime approach, advocating for more severe penalties, building more prisons and using laws to keep some criminals behind bars longer. Barr has said he will fully support and carry out the law.

Trump has touted the overhaul as a rare bipartisan effort to address concerns that too many Americans were imprisoned for nonviolent crimes as a result of the drug war. The president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, helped persuade him to get behind the measure and clashed with former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who did not see criminal justice reform as a top priority.

During a tour that lasted nearly three hours, Barr also met with a prison psychologist, inmates who act as mentors in faith and drug-treatment programs, and with instructors who help prisoners create resumes and participate in job fairs. Passing through the narrow hallways, Barr peeked through the windows of some classrooms where inmates were completing computer skills and GED programs. In one room, where older computers and typewriters lined the walls, Barr chatted about re-entry programs and heard from mentors who teach their fellow inmates how to prepare for the job interviews.

The Justice Department has been working to meet the deadlines set by Congress for the First Step Act and is expected to unveil a risk-assessment tool this week that will help to evaluate federal inmates and ultimately could speed up their release.