George Floyd’s murder sparked a renewed national conversation around police reform, but progress in the year since his death has been stop-and-go. Reform at the federal level has languished in the Senate, while progress has been mixed in the states with some progressive efforts succeeding and others succumbing to obstinate legislatures or excessive compromise.
Stalled or failed efforts at reform are nothing new to the criminal justice community. It took Congress more than 24 years to finally address the indefensible 100-to-1 sentencing ratio for crack versus powder cocaine; then the number was only changed to a still onerous 18-to-1 ratio. It took eight more years for Congress to make that change retroactive. And repeated, bipartisan efforts to actually reduce those mandatory minimum sentences have gone nowhere…