In a Thursday speech at the Hudson Institute, Sen. [crscore]Tom Cotton[/crscore] criticized Senate criminal justice reform efforts.
“As you probably know, there’s a bill in Congress now that would sharply reduce mandatory minimums for a slew of federal crimes, grant judges wider discretion to depart from these minimums, and apply reductions retroactively so that duly convicted felons will be released early,” Cotton told the crowd. “The bill’s advocates contend that we’re locking up too many offenders for too long for too little, we can’t afford it anyway, and we should show more empathy toward those caught up in the criminal-justice system.”
“These arguments, put simply, are baseless.” (RELATED: Civil Rights Commissioner — Cutting Sentences Increases Black-On-Black Crime)
The Arkansas senator would go on to state law enforcement officials can only “arrest or identify a likely perpetrator for only 19 percent of property crimes and 47 percent of violent crimes.”
“If anything, we have an under-incarceration problem.”
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