OPINION:
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is taking a beating from his own party.
Senate Republicans have grilled Mr. Blanche over a now-abandoned $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund and his handling of Jan. 6 defendants, with his confirmation hearing next month shaping up as a gauntlet.
So it is notable that one of the few places that Mr. Blanche has found common ground with Senate Democrats is criminal justice.
Pressed by Sen. Chris Coons, Delaware Democrat, at a recent hearing on whether he could support the Safer Supervision Act, Mr. Blanche responded: “There’s no disagreement from me on a word you just uttered.”
The bill, backed by conservatives like Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and liberals like Sen. Cory Booker, offers a commonsense fix: Concentrate supervision on people who truly need it and give judges flexibility to shorten terms when solid evidence of rehabilitation exists.
The problem is straightforward. Overburdened officers are stretched thin across sprawling caseloads, making it harder to focus on people who pose a genuine public safety risk. Meanwhile, many low-risk individuals remain tethered to the justice system long after proving they’ve turned their lives around — wasting public resources and human potential.
Consider the case of Charles Kushner, father of President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and now U.S. ambassador to France. After serving two years in federal custody for a first-time, white-collar offense, he would have spent three years on supervised release, including time in a halfway house at taxpayer expense, had he not received a presidential pardon. (This despite owning a massive apartment portfolio.) Squandering resources on someone who doesn’t need it is no way to run a railroad.
The evidence behind the Safer Supervision Act’s approach is solid. Multiple randomized controlled trials — the gold standard in empirical research — have found that reducing supervision intensity for low-risk individuals does not increase recidivism. A landmark Philadelphia study found low-risk probationers randomly assigned to low-intensity supervision showed no significant differences in new offense charges 18 months later.
Indeed, some research suggests that intensive supervision actually increases recidivism for the lowest-risk offenders, as it disrupts work and family life. The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts has acknowledged that “excessive correctional intervention for low-risk defendants may increase the probability of recidivism.” The key takeaway? Less, done right, is more.
States, long described as laboratories of innovation, offer proof points for this incentive-driven brand of reform. Texas enacted earned time credits for probationers in 2011, allowing people to shorten supervision by completing treatment, paying restitution or earning degrees.
The results were exactly as intended: From 2011 to 2015, revocations for new offenses dropped 11%, while early terminations increased by 10%. Similarly, Missouri’s earned compliance credits program, implemented in 2012, reduced the supervised population by roughly 13,000 within three years, with no significant difference in re-offense rates.
The Safer Supervision Act brings these lessons to the federal level through three targeted reforms. First, it requires courts to conduct individualized assessments at sentencing — asking whether supervision is necessary and stating the reasons on the record.
Second, it creates clear pathways for earned early termination. After completing at least half of their supervision term, people who have shown consistent compliance and rehabilitation would become eligible for presumptive early termination.
But this isn’t a free pass. It’s an incentive structure rewarding the behaviors we want to encourage: completing treatment, maintaining employment, paying restitution and staying crime-free.
Third, the bill restores judicial discretion for minor drug possession violations. Under current law, even a small possession offense can trigger mandatory revocation and re-imprisonment. Yet relapse is often part of the recovery process. Judges should be able to assess the full picture of a person’s progress and determine if continued treatment or graduated sanctions would be more appropriate than incarceration.
Notably, this reform has strong law enforcement backing. The Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, the National District Attorneys Association and the Major Cities Chiefs Association have all endorsed it, in part because courts retain full discretion to deny early termination for any appropriate reason.
What changes is this: When someone has demonstrably turned their life around and poses little danger, a judge would have clearer authority to act on that reality.
The Safer Supervision Act is research-based, focuses resources where they matter most, and trusts judges to recognize progress when they see it. In an era when Washington gridlock is the nation’s snooze button, evidence-driven reform that unites strange bedfellows — from Todd Blanche to Cory Booker — is something Congress shouldn’t sleep on.
• Marc Levin is chief policy counsel at the Council on Criminal Justice and co-leads its Centering Justice initiative. Khalil Cumberbatch is director of strategic partnerships at the Council on Criminal Justice. He was previously incarcerated and is a nationally recognized advocate for criminal justice reform.
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