ABSTRACT
The Second Chance Act represented a remarkable achievement for national policy makers who for decades raced to see who could be the toughest crime warrior. An overlapping struggle to reform federal cocaine sentencing laws would prove just as important, if not more. From a political standpoint, the fight to pass the Fair Sentencing Act (FSA), a bill signed into law by President Obama in August 2010, carried even greater consequence. The Second Chance Act addressed problems at the back end of the criminal justice system. Offenders received policy benefits only after they had served prison or jail time. The FSA, in contrast, required lawmakers to weaken criminal penalties at the front end of the criminal justice system. The legislation marked the first time in forty years that Congress reduced a criminal punishment for a federal drug offense. In so doing, Congress took a significant step toward achieving greater justice and fairness in America’s federal criminal sentencing system.
