Criminal Justice

Fighting for Justice

Criminal Justice Reform

Senator Casey believes we need to rebalance our criminal justice system to reduce the overcrowding of prisons with nonviolent offenders serving unnecessarily long sentences, and instead focus on violent crime, which poses the greatest risk to our communities. We also need to make sure that people who made mistakes but paid their debt to society are not forever punished by policies that keep them from exercising their civil rights and accessing the ladders of opportunity.

  • Senator Casey cosponsored the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act. This bill would make a number of improvements to the criminal justice system, including:
    • reducing unnecessary mandatory minimums and rebalancing sentencing practices to focus on violent crime instead of overcrowding prisons with nonviolent offenders;
    • making retroactive the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, which reduced the crack-cocaine sentencing disparity, to allow certain nonviolent offenders to petition courts for an individualized review of their sentence; and
    • improving programming for current prisoners to help them successfully reenter society upon their release and permitting eligible nonviolent juvenile offenders to seal or expunge their records.
  • Senator Casey cosponsored the Fair Chance Act. This bill would “ban the box,” or prevent federal agencies and contractors from inquiring about job applicants’ criminal histories until after offering a conditional offer of employment.Senator Casey cosponsored the Democracy Restoration Act, which restores federal voting rights to formerly incarcerated individuals who have completed their sentences.
  • Senator Casey has signed multiple appropriations letters in support of funding for the Legal Services Corporation, through which attorneys help clients secure basic needs like health care, Social Security, child support and assistance for domestic violence victims.
  • Senator Casey signed a letter to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) urging finalization of a rule to reduce the cost of inmate phone calls. In some states, a 15 minute call has an average cost of more than five dollars. Phone service in prison is important to both prisoners and their families, especially their kids, and should be reasonably priced.

Juvenile Justice Reform

Children are not little adults. They have unique needs and require different treatment. Nowhere is this more true than in the justice system, where a positive intervention can put a child back on the right path, and a negative one can send a child spiraling into crime, drugs or violence. Senator Casey has been a leading advocate to implement evidence-based practices to keep children on the right path and make sure young people in the system are treated fairly and always with the goal of rehabilitation.

  • Senator Casey sponsored the Youth PROMISE Act. This bill would empower local communities to fund, evaluate and implement evidence-based youth violence prevention and intervention strategies.
  • Senator Casey sponsored the Prohibiting Detention of Youth Status Offenders Act. This bill would close the so-called “valid court order” loophole, which currently allows judges to incarcerate children for crimes that would not be illegal if they were adults, like truancy or breaking curfew.
  • Senator Casey sponsored the Juvenile Fee Transparency Act. This bill would create, as a condition for receiving federal juvenile justice grants, reporting requirements related to the assessment of fees in the juvenile justice system. Currently, little is known about when fees are assessed and what the consequences of those fees are for the juveniles, their families and the system as a whole.
  • Senator Casey has signed appropriations letters supporting funding for a wide variety of juvenile justice programs through the Department of Justice, including the Youth Mentoring Program.
  • Senator Casey has signed appropriations letters supporting funding for the Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) Volunteer Program, which recruits and trains volunteers to serve as advocates for abused and neglected children navigating the court system.

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