Kansas senators support bill to overhaul federal sentencing

photo by: Associated Press

Kansas Sens. Pat Roberts, left, and Jerry Moran

TOPEKA — Kansas Sens. Jerry Moran and Pat Roberts support a bill that would be the largest overhaul of federal sentencing laws in decades.

The two Republicans reiterated their backing of the bipartisan measure Wednesday. President Donald Trump also supports it.

Moran was among the measure’s first sponsors and said it is sensible legislation to make drug sentences fairer, fight the opioid epidemic and promote programs that prevent repeat offending.

Roberts is also a sponsor and said current mandatory federal sentences have “simply increased the prison population rather than deter crime.”

The bill would revise 1980s and ’90s-era “tough on crime” laws to boost rehabilitation efforts for federal prisoners and give judges more discretion when sentencing nonviolent offenders. It would attempt to focus the toughest sentences on the most violent offenders,

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