NEW YORK TIMES: Months of tense and at times frustrating negotiations over the effectiveness and fairness of locking up nonviolent offenders for mandatory prison terms gave way to simple handshakes on the floor of the Senate on Wednesday morning in a bold effort to recast two decades of criminal justice policy.
Senator Charles E. Grassley, a conservative Iowa Republican; Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, a veteran Democratic deal maker; and Senator Cory Booker, a New Jersey Democrat with just two years in office, accepted one last request by Mr. Booker to allow young offenders to seal their criminal records so they are not haunted by early mistakes.
That final agreement led to a powerful, bipartisan group of senators on Thursday introducing a broad criminal justice measure that its authors hailed not only as the most important federal justice overhaul in a generation, but also as an example of how Congress can work when lawmakers are willing to compromise… (more)
