The First Step Act — dubbed “prison release” by conservatives and law enforcement officials — will reduce sentences for drug traffickers while immediately resulting in the release of 4,000 inmates.
On Tuesday, President Trump announced that he would sign the First Step Act legislation against the wishes of conservatives and the law enforcement community. The legislation has been a priority for Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, and her husband, Jared Kushner, as well as the GOP megadonor billionaire Koch brothers.
As Breitbart News has reported, the prison reform plan will cut the penalty for drug traffickers in at least half. Current law mandates a prison sentence of at least 20 years for a repeat fentanyl drug trafficker. The First Step Act automatically reduces that sentence by five years and further cuts the penalty through a number of changes which result in a seven year, ten month prison time. This is less than half of the time that the drug trafficker would have served under current law.