ACLU Comment on Colson Task Force Report Release

WASHINGTON – The congressionally mandated Charles Colson Task Force released its report and recommendations for addressing our flawed federal criminal justice system. The Colson report provides a blueprint for sensible, cost-effective reforms to the federal corrections system necessary to make communities safer and restore lives and.

Jesselyn McCurdy, senior legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington Legislative Office, who testified before the Colson Task Force in March of 2015, commented:

“The Colson Task Force confirms what many recent studies have concluded: Exceedingly long mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses are a part of why our federal system is 20 percent overcrowded. Too many of those behind federal bars for drug offenses are nonviolent offenders.

“We can and should end this scourge on American families, which is why we’ve joined the bipartisan movement to pressure Congress to pass S. 2123, the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act and H.R. 3713, the Sentencing Reform Act. ”