In his second term, Donald Trump has revived some of the most punitive imagery in modern American politics. Despite the exorbitant costs that forced it to close decades ago, he wants to reopen Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay. Florida opened a migrant detention facility quickly dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” in the Everglades, which he applauded, and his top officials visited. Undocumented migrants are frequently deported to third countries, sometimes mistakenly and with little due process, and to hell-holes like El Salvador’s megaprison. All too often, indiscriminate ICE raids proliferate with deadly consequences.
The message is unmistakable: strength is demonstrated through visible severity.
Whether it is reopening Alcatraz or ICE deporting construction workers, housekeepers, and children, many have wondered what this means for bipartisan criminal justice reform in the second Trump term. Ironically, the cross-ideological and bipartisan movement for criminal justice reform reached a high-water mark in Trump’s first term with the 2018 First Step Act (FSA). Not only did Trump sign it, but he pressured reluctant Senate leadership to bring it up. That act, among other things, expanded federal recidivism-reduction programs, lowered sentences for inmates with good behavior, banned the use of restraints on pregnant inmates, and reduced sentencing disparities. That, though, was before a post-pandemic spike in crime and controversies over defunding police and “progressive prosecutors.”
Yet beneath the noise, bipartisan criminal justice reform not only shows signs of life but may even be regaining momentum, even as Trump engages in pyrotechnics like calling the Pope “weak on crime.” For instance, as federal immigration detention has exploded, few have noticed that the federal prison population declined by over 4,000 in 2025.
There are green shoots in criminal justice—initiatives in the states (red and blue), the second Trump administration’s more aggressive implementation of the FSA’s provisions, and the continued sharp post-pandemic plunge in crime rates. According to data recently released by the Council on Criminal Justice, a nonpartisan think tank and membership organization that builds consensus for public safety solutions, homicide in the U.S. plummeted 21 percent in 2025, building on sharp declines in 2023 and 2024. Nonfatal shootings and several property crime categories have also dropped from pandemic-era highs.
Historically, reform is more likely when crime is falling than when it is rising. That pattern appears to be re-emerging. Indeed, the FSA, which reined in mandatory minimums for low-level drug offenses, was enacted in 2018 when crime was falling. This suggests the window could reopen for bipartisan reforms. Still, it will require a commitment to, in substance and style, focusing on incremental changes backed by evidence that unite both the left and the right.
The Values Divide: Understanding Reform’s Appeal to Left and Right
Polling shows strong bipartisan support for “criminal justice reform,” although the term means different things to different people, particularly after the heyday of calls to abolish police and prisons. This radical approach gained little currency even in the most progressive jurisdictions. It made it easier for opponents of any reform to conflate even incremental measures backed by solid research with abolitionism.
Whereas most Democrats say in polling that major changes to policing are needed, the majority of Republicans say only minor changes are required. The battle over criminal justice reform reflects the divide over values. Research suggests that conservatives embrace tradition and are wary of changes that are too big and too fast. They prioritize authority, loyalty, and social order, while liberals emphasize care, fairness, and protection from harm. Progressives place less weight on how things have been done in the past.
For conservatives, the primary concern is deterrence and order: Does reform weaken consequences? Does it undermine respect for the law? For liberals, the primary concern is fairness and restraint: Does the system punish excessively? Does it impose unequal burdens?
At its best, criminal justice reform appeals to both sides. Lasting reform balances concerns instead of dismissing one side’s values. Protections such as due process and limits on civil asset forfeiture address conservative concerns about unchecked government and support liberal principles of fairness. Implementing graduated incentives and sanctions for those on probation encourages accountability while allowing for rehabilitation. Improving homicide clearance rates enhances deterrence and helps safeguard communities disproportionately affected by violence.
Why Abolitionism Undermines Bipartisan Reform
But when reform shifts from institutional calibration to institutional dismantlement, bipartisan coalitions fray. Following George Floyd’s murder, increased attention focused on a small wing of the far left that, at its most extreme, embraces the “abolition” of prisons and police.
Even progressive democracies, frequently cited as models, have not abolished incarceration. Scandinavian countries incarcerate far fewer people than the United States, but they maintain secure facilities for serious violent offenders, as documented by the World Prison Brief. Norway’s incarceration rate is dramatically lower than America’s—but it is not zero. Sweden’s is not zero. Denmark’s is not zero. France, frequently portrayed as more lenient than the United States, has more police officers per capita, according to data compiled by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
No developed democracy has eliminated incarceration for serious violence. That absence reflects institutional reality, not ideological timidity. Empirical research reinforces this caution. A review by criminologist Daniel Nagin for the National Institute of Justice concludes that the certainty of apprehension deters crime more effectively than simply increasing sentence severity. The National Academy of Sciences found in The Growth of Incarceration in the United States that lengthening already long sentences yields diminishing returns in reducing recidivism.
But diminishing returns are not zero returns. Incapacitation prevents victimization during confinement, particularly for high-rate violent offenders. Abolitionism discards these realities. It proposes maximal institutional change without empirical grounding and without precedent in comparable societies. That is why it alienates not only conservatives but moderates and center-left voters.
Punitive Excess: A Recent Policy Shift, Not an American Tradition
To the extent conservatism is about preserving tradition, there is little in America’s history that supports the current incarceration rate, which is four to seven times higher than Western European countries and Canada, excessive drug penalties, and civil asset forfeiture. To the contrary, these are all late-20th-century phenomena.
As we observe semiquincentennial celebrations of the Declaration of Independence, reverence for history will animate the right. So, it’s worth remembering that the prison population explosion is recent. The National Academy of Sciences documented that the U.S. largely tracked the low incarceration rates of Western Europe and Canada up until the early 1970s. The explosion in incarceration followed policy shifts during the War on Drugs and the tough-on-crime era.
Consider that the “War on Drugs” did not begin in earnest until Richard Nixon’s administration. Mandatory minimum sentencing expanded dramatically in the 1980s and 1990s. “Three strikes” laws lengthened penalties substantially. Drug penalties became a one-way ratchet that continued rising until the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, which narrowed the federal crack-to-powder disparity in sentencing. Despite warnings otherwise, an analysis by the U.S. Sentencing Commission found no significant increase in cocaine trafficking following reductions.
Just as the drug war is relatively new, so too is its offspring: modern civil asset forfeiture. The Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 ushered it in, meaning that America survived for two centuries without the practice of forfeiting people’s property without ever convicting them.
Forfeiture became commonplace in the 1980s. The Institute for Justice’s Policing for Profit report documents weak procedural safeguards in numerous states, resulting in never-convicted persons having to bring suit to recover their property. Civil asset forfeiture runs contrary to due process, the presumption of innocence, and the right to a trial by jury. Our longstanding republican legal traditions can bolster the case for rolling back a relatively recent machination.
Conservatives’ reverence for the past should not translate into a wholesale endorsement of policies that, in many cases, like civil asset forfeiture, are departures from our founding principles and tradition. By the same token, though, the connection between harsh practices and our nation’s original sin of white supremacy cannot be ignored. It is evidenced in the role of police and sheriffs in returning fugitive slaves and the internment of Japanese Americans.
Nonetheless, bipartisan criminal justice reform at its best draws upon universal bulwarks to which our founders aspired, even as they failed to extend to all—due process, proportionality, human dignity. Aligning criminal justice policy with these values while protecting public safety requires drawing on the best of our past while innovating for a better future. It involves tapping into causal research to identify what works, making incremental changes, testing the results, and making necessary adjustments.
Deference to the Past vs. Deference to Government
We know that criminal justice reform, which goes far beyond established norms, meets conservative resistance to change. But if the right may be too stodgy at times, the left may be too prone to support drastic, sudden changes without sufficient time and capacity for implementation and measurement.
There is also another obstacle, though. Sometimes reform must also overcome the left’s fealty to unions and government. For years, public sector correctional officer unions leveraged their resources to support policies such as California’s “three strikes” law, which initially covered even minor offenses. In education and criminal justice, progressive loyalty to government manifests as support for public-sector unions, which often lead to policies that are not in the best interests of students or those in the justice system.
Collective bargaining agreements typically make it difficult to discipline a perpetually failing teacher or police officer. Indeed, an assessment by the Council on Criminal Justice’s Task Force on Policing found that current disciplinary systems are inadequate, partly due to union influence.
The instinctual deference to government on the left can stymie alternatives to incarceration, such as probation and parole. There is a tendency to believe more is better in these systems. Still, research indicates that over-supervising low-risk individuals is counterproductive, partly because it disrupts employment, family interactions, and liberty more than necessary. Relatedly, rhetoric around community supervision or even diversion programs “fixing” offenders may be more common from the left than the right and falls into the trap of glossing over the fundamental role of the individual in self-improvement.
Best of Both Worlds Reforms Within Reach
While Washington oscillates between rhetoric and stalemate, states across the political spectrum continue enacting incremental but meaningful bipartisan reforms. Last year, Georgia passed the Survivor Justice Act (HB 582), the nation’s most comprehensive bill designed to prevent survivors of domestic violence and child abuse from suffering harsh penalties for conduct related to their own survival. In December, it was adopted as model policy by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the organization of conservative state lawmakers.
Also in 2025, Arkansas enacted Act 670, reforming probation and parole supervision to focus resources on higher-risk individuals, and Virginia, under Governor Glenn Youngkin, passed two significant probation reform bills—HB 2252 and SB 936—that reduce unnecessary supervision and allow early termination of probation for those who demonstrate compliance. Research indicates that incentive-based supervision models reduce recidivism more effectively than purely sanction-driven approaches. By shortening supervision for compliant individuals, states can focus resources on higher-risk cases and reduce technical violations that unnecessarily drive incarceration.
Arizona had one of the most productive criminal justice reform sessions in 2025, establishing independent prison oversight through SB 1507 and creating an ombudsman to investigate complaints about prison conditions. It also eliminated its crack-to-powder disparity, aligning state policy with federal reforms. Oklahoma enacted HB 1460 to expand earned credit opportunities for incarcerated individuals. North Dakota’s HB 1425 reformed sentencing guidelines to reduce over-incarceration. Nevada’s SB 120 created pathways for record sealing.
Even as work is still underway in most states with legislative sessions in 2026, Alabama has won plaudits from reform advocates for enacting similar changes that require the Board of Parole to consider an applicant’s risk level and rehabilitative efforts while incarcerated and give it more latitude to impose graduated sanctions in lieu of revocation.
Another promising bipartisan strategy gaining momentum: investing more in solving crimes. In 2025, Missouri and Texas adopted grant programs for local enforcement aimed at boosting clearance rates for violent crimes, though the Texas version must still be funded in the next session starting in January 2027. In April of this year, Utah enacted its own such grant program, even attracting a matching grant from Arnold Ventures. This Houston-based philanthropy has supported projects with the Washington Monthly. Pennsylvania could be next, as this policy was passed by the House in 2025 and was carried over to the Senate this year, where it awaits action.
The growing momentum behind these investments reflects research showing that the certainty of apprehension deters crime far more effectively than increasing the severity of punishment—a recognition that focusing resources on solving more crimes, rather than making already long sentences longer, represents both smart policy and effective criminal justice reform. Jennifer Doleac, the economist and executive vice president of criminal justice at Arnold Ventures, whose groundbreaking book The Science of Second Chances was reviewed in these pages in March, highlighted the strong evidence supporting the effect of solving more crimes in a 2024 New York Times op-ed.
While opportunities at the state level remain the most plentiful, bipartisan federal reform is not dead, with the bipartisan Safer Supervision Act (SSA) drawing upon successful state reforms in much the same way that the FSA did. It would modernize federal probation and supervised release by encouraging individualized conditions, expanding earned-time incentives, and reducing unnecessary burdens of supervision. Introduced by Senators John Cornyn and Cory Booker, the legislation has drawn support from an unusually broad coalition across the ideological spectrum as well as the Fraternal Order of Police and former federal prosecutors.
The SSA was directly inspired by similar supervision reforms adopted at the state level over the past decade. States such as Texas, Georgia, and South Carolina demonstrated that tailoring supervision conditions to individual risk and needs—rather than imposing one-size-fits-all requirements—reduces recidivism while lowering costs. These states implemented evidence-based policies that focus intensive supervision resources on higher-risk individuals while allowing compliant, lower-risk supervisees to earn reductions in supervision terms and requirements through measurable achievements such as stable employment, treatment completion, and sustained compliance. The SSA builds on these proven models, adapting their core principles to the federal system.
Research supports this approach. A comprehensive meta-analysis published in the Journal of Experimental Criminology found that positive incentives—including earned credits, swift rewards for compliance, and graduated sanctions—significantly reduce recidivism. Rather than dismantling the federal supervision system, the Safer Supervision Act refines it—aligning federal policy with lessons drawn from successful state innovation. It represents the kind of incremental, bipartisan reform that can endure, appealing to conservative principles of individual accountability and limited government intervention while addressing progressive concerns about fairness, effectiveness, and reducing unnecessary incarceration.
Criminal Justice Reform in an Age of Spectacle
Given our partisan and ideological divide, what is the path forward for criminal justice reform? Fortunately, we now have a roadmap. In January 2025, the Council on Criminal Justice and Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs convened 14 organizations from across the political spectrum—from the American Conservative Union Foundation to the ACLU—to develop Bipartisan Principles for Criminal Justice Reform. These principles affirm that reform should be grounded in evidence, protect human dignity, ensure fiscal responsibility, and respect both individual liberty and public safety.
A deep philosophical commitment to advancing liberty, equity, and human dignity that recognizes America’s advancing these principles and how we have fallen short represents the best frame for transforming our nation’s approach to criminal justice. We can draw on the most appealing aspects of traditionalism and progressivism. Due process and other principles in our founding documents appeal to the conservative skepticism of government and the liberal emphasis on universality.
Rightsizing and humanizing the criminal justice system need not entail wrongly positing that such changes are toppling everything that has come before, when, in fact, steps such as lowering incarceration, reining in the drug war, and abolishing civil asset forfeiture would mark a return to how the criminal justice system functioned throughout most of our history.
Trump-era politics prizes visible strength—facilities reopened, raids televised, toughness declared. Progressive maximalism prizes rhetorical rupture—systems condemned as irredeemable. Both approaches are emotionally resonant but institutionally shallow. Institutions are not remade by symbolism, whether that is threatening to reopen Alcatraz or the protests deriding cops as pigs. Incentives, measurement, and adjustment remake them.
Empirical research does not support extremes. It supports calibration, focusing on certainty in punishment over severity. It supports shortening supervision for those who succeed. It supports measuring results and adjusting when outcomes fall short. Radical change allows for moral preening, but Incremental reform promises something less dramatic but more durable: better outcomes in both public safety and fairness.
In times of institutional stress, the true choice isn’t about toughness versus leniency. Instead, it’s about choosing between spectacle and responsibility. Reform rooted in research and continuous measurement will endure beyond mere Trumpian punitive displays or Defund-the-Police radicalism. Steer clear of utopian illusions, and it becomes possible even in a divided age. Advocating for practical reforms offers not just a way to rebuild bipartisan consensus but to align policies with the American values we genuinely uphold.
