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Trump was again touting all he's done for black Americans yesterday w an emphasis on criminal justice reform. Per the NYT in June, Jared persuaded Trump to run again, in part, by telling him the First Step Act will win over black voters. Let's take a close look at the act.....
...What many people don't realize is the First Step Act only applies to prisoners convicted on federal charges which, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) totaled 166,647 as of May 21, 2020....
https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/population_statistics.jsp
https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/population_statistics.jsp
...Per a March '20 Prison Policy Initiative report, the total number of incarcerated prisoners including those in custody but not convicted is 2.3 million....
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2020.html
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2020.html
...The BOP website is a terrific source of data about federal prisons. I compiled the number of prisoners released by month for '18, 19 & '20. For some unstated reason, the number of prisoners released in May '18 isn't available....
https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_releases.jsp
https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_releases.jsp
...Per a July '19 WP story by @mattzap. 3,100 federal prisoners were released that month under the First Step Act which explains the bump in BOP's release numbers in July '19....
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/3100-inmates-to-be-released-as-trump-administration-implements-criminal-justice-reform/2019/07/19/7ed0daf6-a9a4-11e9-a3a6-ab670962db05_story.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/3100-inmates-to-be-released-as-trump-administration-implements-criminal-justice-reform/2019/07/19/7ed0daf6-a9a4-11e9-a3a6-ab670962db05_story.html
...Other than July '19, it doesn't look like a significant number of federal prisoners have been released under the First Step Act since then although 1,691 federal prisoners convicted on crack cocaine charges did have their sentences reduced per WP....
...Per BOP, the number of black federal prisoners as of this month is 63,208. (For purposes of this thread, I'm not addressing other prisoner stats by race, ethnicity & country)....
