OPINION
Trump’s new BOP team is implementing reforms that make America safer.
Every community wants the same thing: to feel safe, secure, and hopeful about the future.
Yet too often, we forget one key player in that mission — our prison system.
Public safety is a team effort. It starts with us — American citizens who care, invest, and watch over our communities.
When we spot a crime or threat, we call law enforcement who selflessly put their lives on the line every day to help others and catch the bad guys.
Then, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges work together to examine the facts, protect constitutional rights, and deliver justice.
Finally, comes the prison system — the public safety teammate most often forgotten. Unlike the police or courts, they aren't the focus of TV shows, but prison guards, wardens, and corrections leaders play an equally vital role in achieving public safety.
Not every crime results in a life sentence: 97% of individuals incarcerated will be back in our neighborhoods in the future.
And while we need police officers to get lawbreakers off the streets and courts to deliver a punishment that fits the crime, that alone will not result in safer streets.
Prisons must do their part; without rehabilitation, a person behind bars might return to society a greater threat than they were before.
Effective public safety requires individuals to return less likely to reoffend than when they went to prison.
President Trump understood this.
It's why he championed legislation that provided workforce training, behavioral therapy, and other programs in federal prison that reduce the risk of committing more crime after release.
Known as the First Step Act, it instructed the Bureau of Prisons to track participation and calculate risk reduction.
Preliminary data from the Council on Criminal Justice has shown that those who successfully participated in President Trump's prison program were 55% less likely to offend than similar inmates who didn’t participate in the program.
Unfortunately, under the Biden administration, the First Step Act was never fully or consistently implemented.
While some found and completed the programs, the Biden administration failed to create a process for every inmate to reduce their risk of reoffending — unnecessarily putting communities in greater danger by not incentivizing rehabilitation.
Even worse, the Biden Administration actively diverted millions of public safety dollars away from federal prisons to other government agencies.
At Americans for Public Safety, we believe that the government has a moral obligation to protect public safety.
Rehabilitating those behind bars significantly improves the odds that they return to our neighborhoods better people and less likely to commit crimes than when they first went to prison.
The new, Trump-appointed BOP leaders are taking this rehabilitation mandate seriously.
For the first time since the passage of the First Step Act in 2018, the BOP has established a system for fully implementing the law.
Now, instead of sloppy mismanagement of release dates, and low-risk inmates being held alongside those who are high-risk due to negligent monitoring; transparency and consistency drive the process.
This better aligns incentives for those behind bars: if they are committed to improving themselves and learning life and job skills, they can earn their way to a lower security classification, and ultimately to a safe return to their families and communities.
It also improves conditions for staff by reducing overcrowding in high-security facilities and providing more predictability to the transfer and release processes.
And it saves taxpayer dollars by reducing emergency transfers and focusing resources where they matter most — increased compensation to improve staff recruitment and retention, and effective rehabilitation for inmates.
We applaud this step forward for public safety.
President Trump is going beyond supporting cops to making sure our prisons — and the unsung heroes who work within their walls to keep us safe — are doing their job to rehabilitate inmates, making them less likely to further victimize our communities upon release.
And the crime stats show it is working.
More than just numbers, they represent thousands of moms, dads, brothers, and sisters safely pursuing their best lives who otherwise would have been crime victims were it not for Trump’s prison program.
With new BOP leadership committed to full implementation, and holdouts from the Biden administration no longer thwarting its effectiveness, the First Step Act can more fully deliver on its promise: safer communities and a stronger nation.
When rehabilitation works, everyone wins — victims see fewer repeat offenses, communities grow safer, and taxpayers save money.
Every person the prison system successfully rehabilitates is one less person the cops must track down, one less person the courts must punish, and one more person living a crime-free life and making a positive contribution to their communities.
Justin Keener is president of Americans for Public Safety. Brianna Nuhfer is Chief Operating Officer for Americans for Public Safety.
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