Coney Island

Jeffries, colleagues form caucus to take fresh look at justice system

July 17, 2015 By Paula Katinas Brooklyn Daily Eagle
U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries says the country has an “overcriminalization problem.” Photo courtesy Jeffries’ office
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A bipartisan group of House members, including U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn, has formed a new caucus to look at ways to fix the country’s criminal justice system, it was announced this week.

Jeffries (D-Brooklyn-Queens) is a co-chairman of the Congressional Criminal Justice and Public Safety Caucus, along with his colleagues U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), U.S. Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Indiana) and Cedric Richmond (D-Lousiana).

The caucus will be dedicated to educating the public and members of congress on crime mitigation, rehabilitation, community collaboration and reform of the prison system, among other issues.

“America’s criminal justice system wastes taxpayer dollars, hurts our economic productivity and has unnecessarily devastated countless families. Fixing our badly broken system is an urgent challenge this Congress must confront,” Jeffries said. “The bipartisan caucus will be an important vehicle to generate legislative action that saves money, makes us safer and leads to more equitable criminal justice policies.”

Chaffetz said he believed Republicans and Democrats could work together to find solutions.

“The price of maintaining the largest inmate population in the world is high, both for our communities and for our pocketbooks. Working together across the aisle, I believe we can find common ground on proven strategies to administer justice, rehabilitate offenders, reduce recidivism, and cut costs,” Chaffetz said.

“The time has long since come to fix our badly broken criminal justice system. We have spent hundreds of billions of dollars and ruined millions of lives with no clear indication that we’re more safe as a result,” Richmond said.

The bipartisan caucus will work with experts and policy makers from the Obama Administration, the judiciary, criminal justice advocates and community stakeholders to facilitate debate and legislative action on criminal justice and public safety issues, according to a joint statement from the lawmakers.

The group will also seek to strengthen the relationship between law enforcement and the community by increasing training and promoting positive policing interactions.

At the start of the current legislative term, the four caucus chairmen introduced the Recidivism Risk Reduction Act, a bill designed use risk assessment tools to reduce recidivism, lower the crime rate and reduce the amount of money spent on the federal prison system.

Jeffries and Chaffetz also introduced another bill, the Bureau of Corrections Renaming Act, legislation that would rename the Bureau of Prisons to the Bureau of Corrections.

 

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