The FIRST STEP Act (S. 2795), introduced by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D- RI) and Sen. John Cornyn (R - TX), was passed by Congress with the intent that people are prepared to come home from prison job-ready and have major incentives to pursue the life-changing classes that will help them succeed on the outside. The Act also provides an avenue for federal prisoners with “extraordinary and compelling reasons” to quickly seek early release by petitioning directly to their sentencing judge and bypassing the Federal Bureau of Prisons bureaucracy.
Currently, the federal prison system is failing to achieve its purpose - rehabilitation- and instead rips people away from their families, lea...