[AicapAifap] FAMM

[Alliance of Incarcerated Canadians/Foreigners in American Prisons]

	Dear Aicap,
 It appears that Congress has stepped into a time machine and traveled
back to the 1980s. Several members of Congress have recently
introduced bills that would broaden the scope of federal mandatory
minimum sentences. 

 Last Friday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 6691 —
only a week after the bill was introduced, and with zero committee
hearings. If passed into law, the bill would rewrite the definition of
a "crime of violence." FAMM opposes this bill because it classifies
certain nonviolent offenses, such as burglary of an unoccupied
dwelling, as a violent crime. Overbroad crime bills were often passed
in a hurry in the 1980s, and we are still cleaning up those messes
today. We need to stop this bill from passing the Senate.

 Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Rep. David Kustoff (R-Tenn.) introduced
S. 3335/H.R. 6697, which would greatly expand the scope of the Armed
Career Criminal Act (ACCA), a federal law that requires a 15-year
mandatory minimum for those who possess guns and have three prior
convictions for either "serious drug felonies" or "violent felonies."
These bills would expand ACCA to apply to people with any three
"serious felonies" — defined as any state or federal crime
punishable by a maximum sentence of 10 years. If this bill becomes
law, countless state and federal nonviolent crimes could trigger the
ACCA's 15-year mandatory minimum sentence. 

 These bills represent a significant threat to the reform movement
that has been building at the federal and state level. With criminal
justice reform negotiations ongoing in the Senate, we cannot allow
Congress to set the clock back on sentencing. 

 FAMM is always watching out for these kinds of steps backwards. If
these bills do begin to move forward in the future, we'll let you know
how and when to help us push back. 

 Best,
 Molly Gill
Vice President of Policy, FAMM
1100 H Street NW | Suite 1000 | Washington, D.C. 20005 | Tel: (202)
822-6700
 FAMM © 2018 All rights reserved.
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