Article from Axios by Jonathan Swan.

Criminal justice reform is moving again at the federal level after more than a year of inertia and disappointment for advocates. Two key bills are being introduced in Congress this week.

Why this matters: These bills — while only the first step in a long process — mark the first serious congressional engagement on criminal justice reform for more than a year. Reformers lost all their momentum during brutal 2016 political season in which candidate Donald Trump elevated “tough on crime” politics at the expense of bipartisan efforts to reduce prison sentences for non-violent criminals.

  1. On Monday, Republican Senators Orrin Hatch, Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, David Perdue, and Rand Paul introduced legislation to ensure that all federal criminal laws take into account whether the person committing the crime did so with intent. Their bill, the Mens Rea Reform Act, sets a default intent standard, meaning the government can’t convict somebody of a federal crime unless it can be proven the person committed the crime “knowingly and willfully.”
  2. Republican Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin want to pass “comprehensive legislation to review prison sentences for certain nonviolent drug offenders, reduce recidivism, and save taxpayer dollars.” Grassley and Durbin said two weeks ago they planned to reintroduce their bill from the last Congress, and it could come out as soon as Tuesday, according to a source familiar with their efforts.

Read the entire article at Axios.