“Our ecnomy has for the first time ever given many former prisoners the ability to get a great job and a fresh start. This second chance at life is made possible because we passed landmark criminal justice reform into law. Everybody said that criminal justice reform couldn’t be done, but I got it done and the people in this room got it done.”

"The conservative movement is now the leader on criminal justice reform”.

“Today the Senate took a great step forward in building safer communities and a brighter future for those who have served their time and are re-entering society,” Scott said. “By cutting recidivism, encouraging job training, education and mental health and substance abuse treatments for incarcerated individuals, and making our criminal justice system both smarter and tougher, we have taken a positive step forward tonight. I want to thank all of my colleagues for their hard work on this bill, and I look forward to House passage and the President enthusiastically signing the First Step Act into law.”

“The passage of the First Step act is a major accomplishment and long overdue. The bill does two important things: lowers the recidivism rate and reduces sentences for nonviolent offenders which allows us to direct resources towards truly dangerous criminals.”

"I’m pleased that my legislation to reauthorize and strengthen the Second Chance Act passed the Senate as part of the bipartisan criminal justice reform bill. This important legislation helps stop the revolving door of incarceration through drug treatment and job training programs, and it helps former inmates live up to their God-given potential”

“After years of bipartisan work, the Senate took a monumental step forward to reform our nation’s criminal justice system. Although I thought my amendment that would have ensured each state has the right to determine for itself the best approach to marijuana within its borders should have been included in the criminal justice reform package, I still supported the final measure because it will have a real impact on how we help people reenter society after they have served their sentence.”

“We know from long experience that if [former prisoners] can’t find work, or a home, or help, they are much more likely to commit more crimes and return to prison. … America is the land of the second chance, and when the gates of the prison open, the path ahead should lead to a better life.”

“I believe we can take an approach to crime that is both tough and smart… [T]here are thousands of non-violent offenders in the system whose future we cannot ignore. Let’s focus more resources on rehabilitating those offenders so we can ultimately spend less money locking them up again.”

“This system [civil asset forfeiture]—where police can seize property with limited judicial oversight and retain it for their own use—has led to egregious and well-chronicled abuses”

“There is an urgent need to address the astronomical growth in the prison population, with its huge costs in dollars and lost human potential… The criminal justice system is broken, and conservatives must lead the way in fixing it.”

“Creating an epidemic of broken families by incarcerating mothers and fathers who are convicted of nonviolent crimes and struggling with addiction is unacceptable, and is not keeping with Oklahoma values.”

“There are few rights that are more basic to our Constitutional system, to our culture, to what we believe about the dignity of the individual soul, than that government ought not come in and arbitrarily take the belongings of individual citizens.””

“One key element of conservative reform is that offenders are actually held responsible for their actions. The thing that makes this different than the usual reforms from liberals is that this accountability leads to change in that individual that doesn’t blame society or an illness, but instead faces the reality: I’ve done wrong, and now I need to make good on it.”

"Our federal mandatory minimum sentences are simply heavy handed and arbitrary. They can affect anyone at any time, though they disproportionately affect those without the means to fight them. We should stand and loudly proclaim enough is enough. We should not have laws that ruin the lives of young men and women who have committed no violence."

“Every criminal deserves punishment, but incarceration is not the only form of punishment. Mandatory programs that work with offenders to get drug treatment, address mental health concerns, or find a way to pay restitution to a victim are all effective tools that decrease the likelihood that an offender will commit another crime in the future.”

“When an innocent person is convicted, everyone loses. The guilty person is still free to commit more crimes, an innocent life is unjustly destroyed, and the legal process is a waste of precious resources. There is no remedy for a wrongful prosecution.”

“The ability of ex-offenders to obtain employment after incarceration and become productive members of their communities is essential to reducing recidivism rates, but due to employers’ concerns about liability, the honest completion of job applications often results in ex-offenders being unable to find work.”