[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 660 Introduced in House (IH)]
<DOC>
119th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. RES. 660
Recognizing that the United States has a moral obligation to meet its
foundational promise of guaranteed justice for all.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
August 19, 2025
Ms. Pressley submitted the following resolution; which was referred to
the Committee on the Judiciary
_______________________________________________________________________
RESOLUTION
Recognizing that the United States has a moral obligation to meet its
foundational promise of guaranteed justice for all.
Whereas the United States has an incarceration crisis that has destabilized
millions of Americans, caused intergenerational harm and trauma to
families, decimated entire communities, and disproportionately impacted
communities of color, particularly Black communities;
Whereas the Federal Government has an obligation to rebuild the American legal
system so that it is smaller, safer, less punitive, and more humane;
Whereas mass decarceration is a moral and societal imperative that the United
States must strategically and effectively pursue;
Whereas the Federal Government manages the largest immigration detention system
in the world, spends more resources on immigration enforcement than on
all other Federal enforcement agencies combined, and now makes up the
fastest growing incarceration system in the country;
Whereas it should be the responsibility of the Federal Government to make
America more free by dramatically reducing jail, prison, and immigration
detention populations; make America more equal by eliminating racial
disparities, wealth-based discrimination, and corporate profiteering;
make America more secure by investing in the communities most
destabilized by the failed policies of overpolicing and mass
incarceration; and make America more just and humane by ensuring basic
resources needed to feel safe are equitably provided to all people;
Whereas the American legal system duplicates and maintains systems of oppression
that can be traced back to slavery, and as a result disproportionately
harms Black communities throughout the United States;
Whereas public safety is of paramount importance for every person, family, and
community in this country;
Whereas a humane and effective justice system is a necessary predicate for a
functioning and healthy democracy;
Whereas, as recently as the early 1970s, the United States had an incarceration
rate on par with most other Western democracies, and while their crime
rates today are at nearly identical levels, America's incarceration rate
is five times higher;
Whereas the United States of America, a Nation purported to be founded on the
principles of liberty and justice for all, has become the most
incarcerated country in the world;
Whereas throughout the United States--
(1) nearly 5 million people are arrested and jailed every year;
(2) almost 2.2 million people are incarcerated, including 176,824
people in Federal jails and prisons;
(3) collectively, 1,273,605 people are locked in State prisons and
another 745,200 people are detained in a local jail on any given night;
(4) 500,000 immigrants are incarcerated in immigrant jails and prisons
annually, marking a 75-percent increase in immigration detention over the
last decade;
(5) 4.5 million people are under some form of community supervision,
including probation and parole;
(6) despite making up 5 percent of the world's population, the United
States has more than 20 percent of the world's prison population;
(7) incarcerated people remain incarcerated for longer periods of time,
and the number of people serving life sentences has quadrupled since 1984,
even as crime has fallen, and--
G (A) one out of every seven people in prison is currently serving a
life sentence, of which almost one-quarter are sentenced to life without
parole;
G (B) the average sentence length for individuals convicted of a
Federal offense carrying a mandatory minimum penalty is 110 months of
imprisonment;
G (C) more than two-thirds of people incarcerated in Federal prisons
serving life sentences have been convicted of nonviolent crimes, including
30 percent convicted for a drug crime; and
G (D) there are tens of thousands of people over the age of 50 who
remain locked up though they are elderly, sick, and pose little to no
public safety risk;
(8) tens of thousands of people are forcibly deported away from their
families through an immigration enforcement system that replicates the
harms of overpolicing and racial profiling by local law enforcement
agencies due to formal and informal cooperation agreements between such
agencies and Federal immigration enforcement; and
(9) more than a quarter of a million young people are arrested or
referred to law enforcement in their schools each year with increasing
investments toward school policing, surveillance, suspensions and
expulsions, harsh discipline, and arrests, in lieu of counseling,
educational resources, and physical improvements to classrooms and school
structures, leading to a ``cradle-to-prison pipeline'';
Whereas, while incarceration is the final and too frequently end result of the
American legal system, the harm is collectively experienced by a far
larger set of people, especially Black and Brown individuals, through
overzealous policing practices and subsequent correctional surveillance
and stigmatization;
Whereas Black people are incarcerated at 5 times the rate of White people,
making up just 13 percent of the national population, but 33 percent of
the country's prison population;
Whereas Latinos represent 16 percent of the adult population, but account for 23
percent of the Nation's prison population;
Whereas the imprisonment rate for Black women (92 per 100,000) is twice the rate
of White women (49 per 100,000);
Whereas Black, Hispanics, and indigenous communities are the most heavily
impacted by the American legal system;
Whereas expanded and militarized police forces, including in the form of
proactive policing or so-called ``broken windows'' policing, has led to
mass criminalization, worsening police-community relations, and
unacceptable levels of State violence, specifically impacting Black
people;
Whereas women are the fastest growing population in the American legal system,
outpacing men two to one, and their numbers have grown nearly 800
percent from 1978 to 2017;
Whereas one in two women in prison are incarcerated as a result of nonviolent
offenses, and nearly two-thirds are confined in jails due to an
inability to afford cash bail;
Whereas a majority of incarcerated women report having experienced trauma due to
sexual violence, intimate partner violence, and caregiver violence;
Whereas 85 percent of currently incarcerated women report having been the
primary caretaker of children prior to their incarceration;
Whereas a large percentage of currently incarcerated women are either elderly,
ill, survivors of domestic violence, or have served more than 10 years;
Whereas incarcerated women are subject to permanent denial of parental rights,
which have contributed significantly to the destruction of families;
Whereas women and young people continue to be criminalized and fear arrest or
jail for experiencing a pregnancy loss, ending a pregnancy, or
supporting a loved one who has lost or ended a pregnancy;
Whereas the toll of incarceration and detention has had a severe impact on
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual
(``LGBTQ+'') individuals who are imprisoned at far higher rates than the
overall population;
Whereas 8 percent of adults in prisons and jails, or approximately 162,000
adults, identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual;
Whereas an estimated 3,209 adults held in prisons or jails in the United States
identify as transgender;
Whereas LGBTQ+ people are more likely to experience sexual violence while
incarcerated than non-LGBTQ+ people;
Whereas LGBTQ+ immigrants are 97 times more likely to be sexually victimized in
immigration detention than non-LGBTQ+ individuals;
Whereas LGBTQ+ people in prison, jail, and detention facilities are
disproportionately subjected to solitary confinement as a means of
protection compared to non-LGBTQ+ people;
Whereas incarceration can be traumatic, dehumanizing, and harmful for LGBTQ+
people affected by it, particularly those who are low-income and people
of color;
Whereas violence against transgender women of color has reached epidemic
proportions in the United States, as evidenced by the murder of at least
26 transgender women in 2018;
Whereas incarcerated individuals endure jails and prisons that are cruel,
inhumane, and are subjected to practices that are not conducive to
rehabilitation;
Whereas over 61,000 people across the United States are subjected to solitary
confinement every day, isolated for 22 to 24 hours a day with little to
no human interaction;
Whereas many incarcerated individuals suffering from chronic illnesses often
receive little or no treatment, and individuals suffering from substance
use disorders face higher rates of overdose in jails and prisons that
prohibit treatment drugs such as methadone and buprenorphine;
Whereas one in five people incarcerated is a person with a cognitive disability,
while another one in five people who are incarcerated has a serious
mental health diagnosis;
Whereas incarcerated people are three or four times more likely to report having
a disability than the rest of the United States population;
Whereas incarcerated people with cognitive and physical disabilities are
disproportionately subjected to solitary confinement;
Whereas people with disabilities are subject to criminalization, violence, and
death, including those with untreated mental health diagnosis who are 16
times more likely to be killed by law enforcement;
Whereas the total cost of the mass incarceration crisis, including the costs to
those incarcerated and their families, is nearly $182 billion per year;
Whereas the burden to pay for the Nation's mass incarceration crisis too often
falls upon everyday people trapped in cycles of poverty and
intergenerational trauma, and statistical mechanisms to comprehensively
quantify the ongoing and generational effects of carceral trauma are
limited and oftentimes unknown;
Whereas nearly a half a million people are in jails without having been
convicted, often because of an inability to afford cash bail, which
leads to an increased likelihood of conviction and lengthier sentences;
Whereas in order to finance the mass incarceration system, many cities, States,
courts, and prosecutors levy hefty fines at nearly every stage of the
criminal justice process, including--
(1) fines and fees for being arrested;
(2) lawyer fees;
(3) crime lab fees and victim assessments;
(4) fees to enter a diversion or substance use disorder treatment
program; or
(5) fees to pay for public and private probation supervision;
Whereas people leave jails and prison owing an average of $13,607 in fines and
fees, and an inability to pay can lead to being denied the right to
vote, license suspension, additional fines and fees, and even further
incarceration;
Whereas the policy decisions that led to the incarceration crisis, as well as
the unjust economic burden to sustain the system, caused inestimable,
intergenerational, and disproportionate harm to communities;
Whereas one in two adults in America has had a family member in jail or prison,
and one in five has had a parent incarcerated;
Whereas nearly 65 percent of families with an incarcerated or detained family
member are unable to meet basic needs, including housing, health, food,
and employment;
Whereas children with an incarcerated parent are nearly six times more likely to
be expelled from school and increasingly less likely to graduate from
college than children without incarcerated parents;
Whereas zero-tolerance policies, including exclusionary disciplinary policies
and school-based arrests, result in the growing cradle-to-prison
pipeline;
Whereas tens of thousands of United States citizen children have a parent who is
detained or has been deported, with approximately 5,000 children placed
in the foster care system;
Whereas children with incarcerated mothers are five times more likely to end up
in foster care than those with incarcerated fathers;
Whereas a vast, sound, and consistent body of scientific evidence suggests
that--
(1) the best estimate of the overall effect of incarceration on crime
is modest, and deterrence effects are negligible;
(2) increased coordination between local law enforcement and
immigration enforcement has not been shown to have a measurable impact on
reducing crime and has been shown to destabilize communities;
(3) education programs for people in prison have been proven to reduce
recidivism, yet such programs have been underfunded or altogether
eliminated at both the State and Federal level, including the ban on Pell
grants in prison, and restoring Pell grant access to people who are
incarcerated would increase the employment rate for people with a criminal
history by 10 percent and improve collective earnings by $45 million in the
first year after release; and
(4) the root causes of crime and instability are typically poverty,
substance use disorder, family and generational trauma, and poor access to
health care and other basic social services;
Whereas the consequences of criminal convictions do not end with the prison
sentence served or fines paid, and a majority of people imprisoned in
the United States are expected to return home, return to society, and
become productive members of their communities;
Whereas yearly, over 680,000 people are released from incarceration, and are
expected to be taxpayers rather than tax burdens, yet the reality is
that these individuals go home to find that their sentences, although
served, are far from over;
Whereas there are approximately 45,000 collateral consequences and civil
disabilities across jurisdictions that prevent people with criminal
records from reentering society, gaining meaningful employment;
Whereas, in many jurisdictions, individuals with a criminal record are
automatically excluded from certain professional licenses such as those
required to be a security guard, firefighter, real estate broker, and
electrician;
Whereas an estimated 6.1 million Americans, or 1 in every 40 adults, are banned
from voting due to felony disenfranchisement or laws restricting voting
rights for those with a current or previous felony conviction;
Whereas the Federal Government has invested massive amounts of funding in
policing, immigration enforcement, and prison and detention systems,
which has accelerated mass criminalization and incarceration and fueled
the prison industrial complex;
Whereas 2019 represents the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Violent Crime
Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (in this resolution referred to
as the ``94 Crime Bill''), and awareness that many of the policies
contained in the 94 Crime Bill have proven harmful to certain
communities;
Whereas the 94 Crime Bill put forward the false view that punitive systems of
policing and prisons lead to public safety and are necessary to combat
``violent'' crime;
Whereas, by endorsing and financing ineffective and damaging policies and
practices at the State and local levels, the 94 Crime Bill encouraged
the growth of police and prison infrastructure while limiting, and
sometimes depleting, community investments that would have increased
public safety, particularly in underresourced communities; and
Whereas the Federal Government has a tremendous impact on the operation of the
criminal legal system at the Federal, State, and local levels and can
push for a more humane, dignified, and just society for all: Now,
therefore, be it
Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that
the time is now for the Federal Government to begin a large-scale
decarceration effort to reshape the American legal system to--
(1) support and commit to a participatory people's process
that recognizes directly impacted people as experts on
transforming the justice system, who speak from experience
about the devastation of criminalization and incarceration and
offer community-oriented solutions that reduce harm by--
(A) empowering directly impacted communities,
through people's assemblies, townhalls, listening
sessions, and workshops, to inform and draft
legislation to repeal and dismantle the 94 Crime Bill
and other punitive policies, and replace them with a
holistic and community-led public health and safety
agenda; and
(B) advancing a community-led platform of justice,
freedom, and safety, which shifts resources away from
criminalization and incarceration and toward policies
and investments that fairly and equitably ensure that
all people can thrive;
(2) dramatically reduce the incarcerated populations to--
(A) decriminalize behavior and divert cases that do
not require confinement by--
(i) providing tax incentives to local
governments and States that commit to policies
such as repealing truth-in-sentencing and
three-strike provisions to significantly reduce
the prison and jail population;
(ii) decriminalizing sex work by removing
criminal and civil penalties related to
consensual sex work and addressing structural
inequities that impede the safety, dignity, and
well-being of all individuals, especially those
most vulnerable to discrimination on the basis
of race, gender identity or expression, sexual
orientation, disability, socioeconomic status,
and citizenship status;
(iii) decriminalizing addiction,
homelessness, poverty, HIV status, and
disa