The Political Dynamics of Justice Reform in The U.S.

should have the discretion in some cases to lock up teenagers for status offenses,
including truancy and curfew violations. Eventually, he was convinced to accept a
seven-day limit on detaining kids for these kinds of crimes—which is also a compromise
for youth advocates who had sought an outright ban.
The new juvenile justice bill, like the First Step Act, is far from comprehensive. It
budgets relatively little money—$80 million spread among the states—to fix problems
as entrenched as racial disparities facing teens in the court system.
But those who have worked on the legislation for years are surprised it passed the
same week that a chance for a vote finally came along on a criminal justice bill many
believed would never see the light of day, either.
“You know, this is part and parcel of Washington,” said Lewis in an interview. “You
come here and you serve with 434 other type-A personalities in the House and 100
folks over in the other chamber and if you think you’re gonna get everything you want,
you’re in the wrong business.”
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The Marshall Project
Nonprofit Journalism About Criminal Justice
15 July 2015
‘Justice and Redemption Go Hand in Hand.’
A Closer Look At The President’s Speech
On Criminal Justice Reform.
Whether or not you agree with President Obama about the need for criminal justice
reform, it is undeniable that the speech he delivered in Philadelphia on Tuesday to the
annual convention of the NAACP broke new ground. Many presidents have spoken
before, and some with great ardor, about law and order. But no sitting president has
ever publicly spoken at such length and in such detail as Obama now has about the
persistent problems of crime and punishment in this country.
Pointedly invoking the names of prominent Republicans like Senators Rand Paul of
Kentucky and John Cornyn of Texas, part of a bipartisan groundswell for smarter law
enforcement, the president called for meaningful change at virtually every juncture: from
the first interaction with police officers to prosecutorial charging discretion to the prison
sentences imposed by judges to the conditions of confinement to the need for job
training for those who are about to be released. Here are key passages from an
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