Ashanti Jones '26
Staff Editor
Thursday, September 28, the Federalist Society at the University of Virginia School of Law hosted speaker Jason Pye for the society’s event titled “The Conservative Case for Criminal Justice Reform: 5 Years After the First Step Act.” Pye serves as the Director for Rule of Law Initiatives at the Due Process Institute in Washington, D.C., and was a key player in the creation and passage of the First Step Act.[1]
Federalist Society President, Aquila Maliyekkal ’24, stated that under the guidance of Vice President for Speakers, Connor Fitzpatrick ’25, the Federalist Society came into this academic year with a mission to diversify the topics discussed during their speaker events to traditionally non-conservative issues. Maliyekkal shared that the goal of this event was both framing criminal justice reform in a conservative context and celebrating the First Step Act as a bipartisan measure.
“The idea behind this is that the First Step Act was one of the biggest pieces of bipartisan legislation that we've seen in recent years, particularly during a very polarizing administration, which made it unique,” Maliyekkal said. “The fact that you were able to get so much support from both conservatives and liberals around it made it important, and now we’re at the five-year anniversary, so when we were considering events, we generally wanted something different than what we normally do.”
Fitzpatrick opened the event with a brief overview, followed by welcoming Pye to the podium. Pye began his presentation by mentioning a recent, incremental shift towards small scale criminal justice reform in historically conservative states such as Georgia, Texas, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Alabama, but remarked larger reforms are uncommon due to a lack of empathy around the issue.
Pye presented several potential justifications for criminal justice reform that could appeal to a conservative audience. Pye’s main justifications for conservative criminal justice reform were protecting those with untreated addictions and mental health issues from unjustified punishment, fairness in sentencing, returning sentencing power to judges, and the premise of second chances.
On protecting those with untreated addictions and mental health issues, Pye stated some crime is often the result of an untreated addiction, mental health issue, or potentially both. He argued that those suffering from an untreated addiction or mental health issue should not be punished for simply having an addiction, unless those persons commit a violent offense.
“Sending people to prison who have unaddressed addiction issues and mental health issues is fundamentally wrong,” Pye said. “Now, if they commit violent crimes, repeat offenses, we should have a conversation about how to punish those people and the appropriate way to punish them.”
Next, Pye stated conservatives should pursue criminal justice reform to ensure the punishment given is equal to the crime committed to ensure fairness across the system. Pye illustrated his point by discussing the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine adopted by the Federal Sentencing Commission in the 1980s. “1986, Congress passes the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, creates a sentencing disparity of 100 to one,” Pye said. “Five grams of crack cocaine got the same five-year mandatory minimum prison sentences as 500 grams of powder cocaine . . . There is no chemical difference between the two.”
After discussing justifications, Pye explained key provisions of the First Step Act and their effect on criminal justice. Pye focused the most on Title 5 of the Act, which reauthorized the bill’s predecessor, the Second Chance Act of 2007, by reinstating, clarifying, and retroactively applying the federal government’s earned time credits and good time credits systems for federal prisoners.
The good time credit system allowed federal prisoners to earn reductions in their total sentences by demonstrating good behavior, while the earned time credit system allowed federal prisoners to earn eligibility for halfway house or home confinement by participating in rehabilitation programming.[2] Pye shared the title’s biggest effect on the time credit systems was fixing the amount of reduced time a prisoner could earn.
“There was already time credit that existed in federal law,” Pye said. “What we did with the First Step Act was restore congressional intent. Given that you all are law students, I’m sure you’ve heard of Chevron deference. The Bureau of Prisons had their own ‘interpretation’ of what 54 days meant . . . it literally says 54 days in the statue—this is not up for debate, it says that in black and white—but they somehow interpreted that to be 47 days . . . so we fixed that. People who had been denied those seven days of good time credit got them back.”
In closing, Pye also examined recent moves for criminal justice reform at the federal level following the First Step Act. Pye stated while success of recent efforts has been limited, some legislation, such as the Fair Chance Act of 2019 and FAFSA Simplification Act of 2020, have had major effects on the system.
Pye also shared an economic rationale for current criminal justice reform for conservatives. Pye argued conservatives should consider criminal justice reform as an economic necessity to fulfill the need for workers. Pye stated criminal justice reforms such as record expungement could aid in reducing the number of unemployed positions by improving employment rates of formerly-incarcerated persons.
“Production is what drives an economy,” Pye said. “In July 2023, there were 8.8 million job openings for 5.8 million people looking for work. We don’t have enough workers to fill the jobs . . . The unemployment rate for people who have served time . . . in prison is 60% at a minimum . . . Individuals whose records were expunged saw yearly wage gains of nearly $4,300 for men and $4,600 for women.”
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alj3emz@virginia.edu
[1] For context, Pye describes himself as a libertarian, not a conservative.
[2] Nellis Ph.D., Ashley and Liz Komar. “The First Step Act: Ending Mass Incarceration in Federal Prisons.” The Sentencing Project, Aug. 2023, <https://www.sentencingproject.org/policy-brief/the-first-step-act-ending-mass-incarceration-in-federal-prisons/>.