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34 Crim. Just. 1 (2019-2020)

handle is hein.journals/cjust34 and id is 1 raw text is: CRIMINAL JUSTICE I SPRING .19 FROM THE Ia 1 By Lucian E. Dervan From the As we reflect on 2018 and begin to consider what 2019 might hold for the Criminal Justice Section, I want to use this column to discuss three matters from 2018 and early 2019 that serve as examples of the rich and diverse work of the American Bar Association, the Crimi- nal Justice Section, and our membership. First, as I noted in my previous column, the Criminal Justice Section launched the Women in Criminal Justice Task Force at the November 2018 Fall Institute in Washington, D.C. The Task Force is charged with considering the unique challenges faced by women in the criminal justice community. Under the leadership of co-chairs Tina Luongo and Carla Laroche, the group embraced this large and challenging task and went to work immediately, holding the Task Force's inaugural meeting and listening session at the Fall Institute. The Task Force is now planning a day-long Women in Criminal Justice symposium for April 4, 2019, in Nashville, Tennessee. This event will be an excel- lent complement to our Spring CLE, which will occur in Nashville the next day and will focus on examining criminal justice reforms from various perspectives. I hope you will be joining us for both of these incredible events. The Women in Crimi- nal Justice Task Force has just begun its important work, and we look forward to all that will result from this endeavor in the coming years. To ensure our members and the larger legal community are aware of the issues being examined by this group, we have created a Women in Criminal Justice column. The column will appear in the Criminal Justice magazine and be a forum for discussions and conversations moving forward. The inaugural column appears in this issue of the magazine, and I hope you will take a few minutes to read its con- tents. The piece includes information about the founding members of the Task Force and about the group's advisory board, led by Kim Parker, incoming chair of the Criminal Justice Section. I commend the members of the Task Force for their Published in Criminal Justice, Volume 34, Number 01, Spring 2019. @ 2019 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or anyportion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express writ- tenconsent of the American Bar Association. commitment to this important initiative. Second, I wanted to mention the passage of the First Step Act in late 2018. The bipartisan bill lowers some federal sentences, expands the use of safety valve provisions for some manda- tory minimum sentences, and creates incentives for participation in programs aimed at reduc- ing recidivism. The First Step Act represents an important piece of federal sentencing legislation in a year that saw renewed focus on the pressing need for change in the way we address criminal justice, and many of the reforms addressed in the bill respond to issues that have been central to the work of the Criminal Justice Section for years. While there has been and will continue to be much debate about the specifics of the First Step Act, I applaud the bipartisan effort to move from conversation to action. I hope that 2019 brings a continued focus on criminal justice reform efforts and that more opportunities present themselves for bipartisan collaborations regarding legisla- tion that makes our communities safer, advances balanced sentencing schemes, creates opportuni- ties for recidivism-reducing activities in prison, and implements programs for successful re-entry when the previously incarcerated return to their communities. The concept of providing meaningful opportuni- ties for previously incarcerated individuals return- ing to the community is the final item I wanted to discuss in this column. In January, I had the honor of joining Washington, DC, Mayor Muriel Bowser, ABA President-Elect Judy Perry Martinez, leaders from the Criminal Justice Section, and many oth- LUCIAN E. DERVAN is chair of the ABA Criminal Justice Section. He is an associate professor of law and director of Criminal Justice Studies at Belmont University College of Law in Nashville, Tennessee. He can be reached via Twitter @LucianDervan. ITI

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