How Releasing 6,000 Prisoners Could Be Just the Start of Sentencing Reform

More than 6,000 federal prisoners will be released starting this weekend as the result of the bipartisan Federal Sentencing Commission's decision to roll back harsh penalties given to nonviolent drug offenders in the 1980s and '90s.

In our partnership with the criminal justice news outlet The Marshall Project, WNYC learned this week that the Bureau of Prisons spent months preparing for the inmates' release. But how robust are the services available to these prisoners as they re-enter society?

Glenn Martin, founder and president of JustLeadershipUSA, is also a former federal prisoner, having served six years for armed robbery. Martin told WNYC's Jami Floyd that although reforms in sentencing or welcome, the country should have a larger conversation about its values.

"We've lost proportionality. We've lost the idea of citizenship, redemption and transformation and so I think we have a dual conversation. One, about the nuts and bolts in terms of undoing mass incarceration, and two, does our current criminal justice system line up with our rhetoric about who we are as Americans? I would argue, it does not," Martin said.