MONTPELIER, Vt. (WCAX) – Changes to the criminal justice system and more funding for mental health services are the focus of Vermont Senator Peter Welch’s years-long effort.
On Wednesday, Welch attended a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the First Step Act, which he helped pass six years ago when he was in the House of Representatives.
The act requires the Bureau of Prisons to develop a tool to assess recidivism risks, as well as create a program to reduce those risks. It also reduced the mandatory minimum for some drug trafficking charges. Now, the senator is focusing on how to address mental health and addiction in the prison system.
“In frustration in our inability to address issues of mental health, a lot of those folks ended up in the prison system and then had a hard time getting out,” he said. “In this country much more than any other country, we rely on the prison system and the criminal justice system to be the place where we somehow address those issues.”
Welch says the First Step Act has helped 27,000 people be released early and decreased recidivism by more than 30%.
In Vermont, the congressional delegation expressed strong support for the federal bureau’s plan to place a residential re-entry center in the state to provide things like mental health support and substance abuse resources.