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Fort Lewis College students lobby Congress for criminal justice reform

Some members of Colorado’s delegation more receptive than others
A group of students, including several from Fort Lewis College, visited Washington, D.C., to lobby for criminal justice reform in March. Haydn Collard, an FLC alumnus, left; Selina Najar, Colorado Mesa University student body president, second from left; met with U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton, third from left. Also seen are FLC students Scott Greenler, left of Tipton, Dan Riley and Alexis Work.

Several Fort Lewis College students visited Congress to lobby for a bill on criminal justice reform.

The result of supporting the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2015 in the Senate and a similar act in the House of Representatives was an education in the legislative process, student Scott Greenler said.

The Senate bill addresses a number of issues, including allowing a court to reduce the mandatory minimum sentence for certain nonviolent defendants convicted on a high-level drug offense as a first offense or repeat low-level drug offenses.

It would make the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 retroactive to permit resentencing of convicted crack cocaine offenders sentenced before August 2010. And it adds new minimum mandatory sentences for those convicted of domestic violence ending in death that occurs across state lines and people convicted of providing goods and services to terrorists, any person developing a weapon of mass destruction or to countries subject to arms embargoes.

In addition to meeting with the staffs of Sens. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., and Cory Gardner, R-Colo., the students met with Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Cortez.

“Michael Bennet was really receptive, because even though it’s a bipartisan bill, it has more support from Democrats,” Greenler said.

“Cory Gardner was open to discussing it, but wasn’t sure he would support it. And Tipton said he agreed we need to figure out how to make our criminal justice system work better, but he wasn’t sure he would support this bill.”

The students traveled in March under the auspices of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, the lobbying arm of the Quakers in the U.S., which focuses on issues including human rights and civil liberties, incarceration and poverty.

The Coloradans joined 400 students from across the nation for Spring Lobby Weekend, where their time in the nation’s capital also included meeting with experts in criminal justice reform.

“They had a fantastic lineup of speakers who gave us a lot of statistics and information about how the system works,” said Greenler, who will graduate with his bachelor’s degree in environmental biology at the end of the month.

abutler@durangoherald.com

Jan 26, 2016
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