Track bills, resolutions, and amendments moving through Congress
Lieutenant Osvaldo Albarati Stopping Prison Contraband Act
The bill clarifies criminal liability and forces timely updates to BOP policies to improve safety and legal clarity, but it increases enforcement and incarceration exposure, raises potential costs for taxpayers, and risks stricter or hastily implemented rules that could harm some incarcerated people.
Trafficking Survivors Relief Act
The bill expands legal remedies, defenses, and access to representation for people who were trafficked—potentially reducing incarceration and improving reintegration—while imposing meaningful new burdens and costs on courts and government agencies and creating privacy, evidentiary, and funding trade-offs that may limit or delay some benefits.
District of Columbia Cash Bail Reform Act of 2025
The bill strengthens public safety and court efficiency by expanding detention and enforcement tools and clarifying rules, but does so at the cost of greater pretrial incarceration, financial strain on low-income defendants and families, and increased fiscal and civil-rights risks.
Prison Staff Safety Enhancement Act
The bill aims to make BOP workplaces safer and more consistent by forcing OIG recommendations and national standards, but it may raise taxpayer costs, disrupt operations during rapid implementation, and could fall short if the Bureau does not fully comply.
Designating April 2025 as "Second Chance Month".
The resolution raises national awareness and encourages reform for people with criminal records, but it is purely symbolic—creating no funding or legal changes and risking unmet expectations or defensive reactions that could delay real policy change.
Designating April 2026 as "Second Chance Month".
The resolution raises awareness and bipartisan momentum to support reentry, education access, and reduced barriers for people with convictions—potentially improving economic mobility and lowering recidivism—but it is nonbinding, so tangible legal changes depend on follow-up policymaking that could spark political debates and require public funding.
Expressing support for the designation of April 1, 2025, through April 30, 2025, as "Fair Chance Jobs Month".
The bill aims to boost employment and reduce recidivism for returning citizens by expanding training and lowering licensing/ID barriers, but it requires public funding, may produce employer hesitancy and safety concerns, and could be implemented unevenly across states.
Federal Prisons Accountability Act of 2025
The bill increases transparency and aims to preserve continuity and predictable leadership at the Bureau of Prisons, but may invite politicized confirmation debates and could constrain DOJ flexibility or complicate removal of problematic directors.
BCRA of 2025
The bill strengthens transparency and creates data and federal oversight tools to improve care for pregnant and postpartum people in custody, but imposes administrative costs and funding-penalty risks that could strain smaller jurisdictions and raise privacy concerns.
Federal Death Penalty Prohibition Act
The bill ends the federal death penalty—removing a severe, unequally applied punishment and sparing current death-row inmates from execution—while provoking concerns about reduced accountability and imposing short-term costs and delays from resentencings.
Prison Libraries Act of 2026
The bill invests in prison libraries and related educational services to expand rehabilitation and reduce recidivism through targeted grant funding and oversight, but it creates new federal costs and significant administrative, operational, security, and funding-continuity burdens that may disadvantage under-resourced jurisdictions and require careful implementation to avoid privacy and misallocation risks.
Rehabilitation Through Reading Act of 2026
The bill increases transparency, oversight, and appeal rights around book prohibitions—benefiting readers, educators, and accountability efforts—while imposing new administrative costs, litigation and stigma risks, and potential safety/delay trade-offs in removing dangerous materials.
Get Justice-Involved Veterans BACK HOME Act
The bill improves incarcerated veterans' access to veteran‑specific mental health care, housing/program supports, staff training, and immediate benefit restoration on release, but does so with increased federal costs, potential capacity and implementation delays, limited initial reach, and privacy/claims complications.
Fair Wages for Incarcerated Workers Act of 2026
The bill raises take-home pay and clarifies labor protections for incarcerated workers by limiting wage deductions and defining covered programs, but it also increases costs for governments and contractors and may prompt reductions or restructuring of prison work opportunities or create new administrative burdens.
Smarter Sentencing Act of 2026
The bill shifts federal drug sentencing and guideline processes toward shorter, more proportionate penalties and faster reform plus greater transparency, trading potential public‑safety and fiscal risks, administrative burdens, and possible diversion of savings away from rehabilitation programs for reduced incarceration and improved access to legal information.
Federal Correctional Officer Paycheck Protection Act of 2026
The bill raises pay and improves retirement calculations for many Bureau of Prisons staff to boost recruitment, retention, and officer safety, but it increases federal payroll and pension liabilities and ties continuation to oversight reviews that could create uncertainty and added administrative costs.
Safer Detention Act of 2025
The bill makes it easier and more certain for vulnerable inmates to seek and receive home detention or compassionate release, at the cost of shifting program costs to probation systems, families, and taxpayers and increasing administrative, litigation, and public-safety concerns.
Amend section 3634 of title 18, United States Code, to extend the period for First Step Act reports.
The bill lightens reporting burdens and modestly lowers compliance costs for agencies and taxpayers, but does so by reducing the frequency of data that enables transparency and timely improvement of prisoner reentry programs.
First Step Implementation Act of 2025
The bill widens opportunities for resentencing, juvenile record sealing, and rehabilitation supports—helping many incarcerated young people and those with juvenile records reenter society—while imposing meaningful administrative costs, leaving limits on confidentiality and certain eligibility, and creating potential public‑safety concerns for a subset of offenders.
Safer Supervision Act of 2025
The bill shifts more people off formal supervision and shortens some prison terms while improving probation pay and study of reentry services—trading potential taxpayer savings, reduced caseloads, and better reentry outcomes against real public‑safety risks, implementation costs, and the possibility of uneven or delayed benefits.
Preventing Violence Against Female Inmates Act of 2025
The bill creates a clear, sex-based rule and funding incentive for prison housing that may reduce some overnight assault risks and administrative ambiguity, but does so at the expense of transgender and medically atypical inmates' safety and access to individualized care while imposing funding and operational costs on noncompliant jurisdictions.
Treatment Court, Rehabilitation, and Recovery Act of 2025
The bill can modernize and expand DOJ grant authority to boost resources for law enforcement and victim-service nonprofits, but replacing the existing statutory framework risks disrupting current grants and could narrow eligibility or reduce funding for some recipients.
Fresh Start Act of 2025
The bill expands automatic sealing/expungement and funds state system modernization to reduce barriers to work and housing for people with prior records, especially low-income and minority populations, but it requires federal and state spending, creates administrative and reporting burdens, and raises privacy and state-to-state consistency risks.
End Solitary Confinement Act
The bill substantially limits solitary confinement and strengthens protections, oversight, and alternatives—particularly for vulnerable people in custody—at the cost of significant upfront and ongoing implementation expenses, increased administrative and litigation burdens, and some short‑term safety and operational risks for detention authorities.
Trafficking Survivors Relief Act of 2025
The bill substantially expands avenues for trafficking survivors to clear records, obtain sentence relief, and access services and protections, but does so at the cost of increased litigation, administrative and fiscal burdens, and trade‑offs between privacy, transparency, and certain public‑safety concerns.
Restoring the Armed Career Criminal Act
The bill strengthens public-safety and sentencing clarity by restoring a firearm-conviction predicate and imposing mandatory, long enhanced sentences for repeat felons, but does so by expanding mandatory penalties, reducing judicial discretion, raising prison costs, and risking disproportionate harm to racial minorities and currently incarcerated people.
Second Chance Reauthorization Act of 2025
The bill broadens and extends reentry supports — improving access to housing, treatment, overdose prevention, and job training for people leaving incarceration — but leaves actual funding uncertain and may strain federal grant budgets and produce uneven local implementation.
Clean Slate Act of 2025
The bill substantially expands automatic sealing to reduce employment, housing, and stigma harms for people with eligible nonviolent or marijuana-related federal records, at the cost of creating potential safety, accountability, and administrative challenges from broad sealing exceptions, employer immunities, and complex eligibility rules.
Family Notification of Death, Injury, or Illness in Custody Act of 2025
This bill improves and standardizes how families are notified about deaths and serious injuries in custody—providing faster, clearer communication and uniform procedures—at the cost of added administrative burdens, privacy risks, and reduced private enforcement options that may limit accountability.
BOP SCAN Mail Act
The bill prioritizes reducing synthetic-drug exposure in federal prisons through mail scanning/offsite processing and clearer authority and oversight, at the cost of substantial federal spending, increased surveillance and privacy/legal risks for inmate communications, and remaining gaps in detection and implementation.
