We're the Senator Who Wrote the First Step Act and the First Man Freed. It's Working | Opinion

When we reconnected on Capitol Hill, we shook hands and smiled. The differences in our lives are stark. One of us served 22 years in prison and was released five years ago thanks to legislation known as the First Step Act; and one of us is a U.S. Senator who led the fight for that landmark law. But this past Wednesday at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, we gathered alongside other legislators and stakeholders who also believe that incarcerated people deserve to have a second chance at life. We celebrated that we were able to turn that dream into reality.

Five years ago, the First Step Act enjoyed widespread bipartisan support when it was signed into law by former President Trump. Today, the political winds are changing. Amid an election year where public fear is still high after a pandemic-era increase in crime, criminal justice reform has become a target for those who seek a return to the punitive policies of the past.

Yet with five years of data now available, the facts are clear: the First Step Act is working. It is possible—and morally right—to make our justice system fairer while also making our communities safer through proven criminal justice reform. That's why the Senate Judiciary Committee came together to discuss the impact of the First Step Act.

The First Step Act is the most important criminal justice reform legislation in a generation. It has safely eased some of our nation's most excessive and unfair sentencing practices, reduced overcrowding, and slashed "revolving door" recidivism as it laid new ground for those who are incarcerated to reenter society successfully. It has dramatically increased rehabilitation rates and reunited thousands of families who were torn apart by unnecessarily long prison sentences.

One of the biggest fears about reducing prison sentences is that people who are released from prison will commit new crimes. The First Step Act has shown that we can dramatically reduce crime rates of people when they are released from prison. Of the nearly 30,000 people released under the First Step Act, only 12.4 percent have been rearrested or returned to federal custody—far lower than today's average federal recidivism rate of 43 percent.

While not everyone who enters prison may be ready for early release, many people can and do change. In just the last year, participation in rehabilitative programming and productive activities in prisons has jumped by more than a third under the First Step Act. We've seen first-hand that many people coming out of federal prison will seize a second chance to turn their lives around if given the opportunity. When we support this kind of effective reform, we are healing people as well as their families, neighborhoods, and communities.

While we all deserve to live free from crime, the war on drugs and its historically high mandatory minimum sentences—a so-called "tough on crime" approach—failed to make communities safer. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, many Americans and their elected representatives in Congress continue to believe that the best way to reduce or eliminate drug addiction and crime is to impose more severe sentences. The First Step Act shows that we must do more than be "tough." We must be smart.

As a Senator who co-authored the First Step Act and as the first person who was released from prison because of it, we have learned that being smart on crime—while also making our justice system fairer—involves lawmakers listening to people directly impacted by the criminal justice system. When we learn from people who have experienced incarceration and who are determined to make a second chance at life count for themselves and others in similar situations, we can find innovative solutions that make redemption a reality.

As we celebrated our reunion last week, we also recommitted ourselves to taking the next step to reform our criminal justice system, because the First Step Act is just that—a first step. We will work together to urge Congress to reform other outdated sentencing laws and improve conditions of confinement and rehabilitation within our prison system. Because five years after the First Step Act, we can say with certainty that these types of reforms make America stronger and safer, but there is more work to be done.

Dick Durbin is the senior United States Senator for Illinois and the Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Matthew Charles was the very first person to be released thanks to the First Step Act and currently serves as an advocate with FAMM.

The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.