Career Criminals and Gang Lords Released From Prison Thanks to First Step Act
9th July 2021
Daniel Horowitz points to an analysis by the Chicago Sun-Times showing that judges are signing off on the release of gang leaders and other notorious criminals. They are doing so pursuant to the First Step Act, the bipartisan, pro-criminal sentencing act that Donald Trump supported and signed into law.
Local prosecutors reportedly are at wits’ end over this development, as they should be. Chicago has been plagued by a surge in violent crime. Over the July 4 weekend, 22 people were killed and 90 wounded in the city. A 20-year-old college student was killed by a stray bullet that smashed through a window while he was sitting on a train.
How can violent criminals obtain release under the First Step which, its advocates assured us, would apply to drug felons, not violent ones? The answer stems to a large extent from the fact that drug charges are the tip of the iceberg for many violent felons.