Six Changes the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act Proposed, and Which Became Law

The Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2017 proposed six big changes to federal sentencing: lower repeat-drug minimums, a wider safety valve, an end to § 924(c) "stacking," some new mandatory minimums, retroactive crack cocaine relief, and risk-based prison programs. Most of them became law in the First Step Act of 2018. Here is what each one would have done.

Update (October 2026): The Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act never became law on its own. Several of its ideas were folded into the First Step Act of 2018, signed on December 21, 2018: shorter repeat-drug-offender minimums, a wider safety valve, the end of § 924(c) "stacking," retroactive crack cocaine relief, and risk-based prison programs. The new mandatory minimums and the national commission described below did not pass. For how the law works today, read our First Step Act summary.

We wrote this post in 2018, while the bill was still in the Senate. Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell had tried to kill the bill before, but the drumbeat for sentencing reform was getting stronger. Even many of McConnell's Republican colleagues saw sentencing reform as the fair and decent thing to do.

That is because the sentencing picture in the United States looks grim. Our experiment in mass incarceration over the last three decades has not produced real results. Any positive results are far outweighed by the unfairness, racism, and injustice built into the sentencing practices of our criminal justice system.

The bill was first introduced in 2015 and came back as the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2017 (S. 1917). We covered it in an earlier post. Here we look at the six biggest changes the bill proposed.

1. Lower penalties for repeat drug offenses

A mandatory minimum is the lowest sentence a judge is allowed to give. Federal law adds higher minimums for people with certain prior drug convictions.

The bill would have cut the 20-year minimum for one qualifying prior to 15 years. It would have replaced mandatory life for two or more priors with a 25-year minimum. It also limited which priors count to "serious drug felonies" and "serious violent felonies." The goal was to ease the harsh sentences given for non-violent repeat drug crimes, while aiming the higher penalties at people with prior serious violent or serious drug convictions.

2. More room for judges in low-level drug cases

Many first-time, non-violent drug offenders got very long sentences because of mandatory minimums. The bill widened the "safety valve," a rule that lets a judge go below the minimum for some drug defendants with limited criminal records. The bill tried to keep strong penalties for violent offenders while letting judges be reasonable with certain non-violent offenders.

3. Fairer gun penalties

Under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c), using or carrying a gun during a drug or violent crime adds prison time. A "second or subsequent" conviction meant 25 more years, even when all the counts were in the same case.

The bill said the 25-year penalty should apply only if an earlier § 924(c) conviction was already final. The original article said the bill aimed to save the harshest gun minimums for people who use a gun in a violent crime or who were previously convicted of and served time for a violent crime, and to give judges more discretion for people who illegally possessed a gun but never brandished or used it in a violent or drug crime.

4. Some new mandatory minimums

Not every change was a cut. The bill added new minimums for interstate domestic violence that results in death and for sending certain controlled goods to terrorists or embargoed countries. It also allowed up to five extra years for selling heroin laced with fentanyl.

5. Retroactive Fair Sentencing Act relief

The Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 shrank the gap between crack and powder cocaine penalties. That gap had hit Black defendants hardest. The original article explained that crack was more common in Black communities, so Black Americans spent far more time in prison than white Americans for similar conduct. But the 2010 law did not help people already sentenced.

The bill would have let people convicted of crack offenses committed before August 3, 2010, ask the judge for a new, lower sentence (S. 1917, § 105(a)). It did not cover all drug offenses, only crack offenses whose penalties the 2010 law changed.

6. Programs to prepare people for release

"Recidivism" means committing a new crime after release. The bill required the Justice Department to rate each prisoner's risk and place them in programs like work, education, drug treatment, job training, and faith-based classes.

People who completed programs could earn time in a halfway house or home confinement.

The bill also limited solitary confinement for juveniles, aimed to make federal criminal records more accurate, and created a National Criminal Justice Commission to review the whole system. A review like that had not been done in more than 50 years.

Where things stood in 2018

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the bill 16-5 on February 15, 2018. With the full Senate possibly next, the bill was encouraging. Given all the problems in federal sentencing and the inequities of mass incarceration since the 1980s, change was long overdue. The six changes were a good start toward real reform.

Many reform advocates said it did not go far enough. Still, on the road to real sentencing reform, it was hopeful to see mass incarceration starting to fade into the rearview mirror.

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