Press Releases

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Ranking Member John Conyers (D-Mich.) issued the following statement on the House Judiciary Committee’s bipartisan criminal justice reform initiative and announced a press conference for tomorrow.

“For the past several months, the House Judiciary Committee has been working on a bipartisan basis on several bills to ensure our federal criminal laws and regulations appropriately punish wrongdoers, are effectively and appropriately enforced, operate with fairness and compassion, protect individual freedom, safeguard civil liberties, work as efficiently as possible, do not impede state efforts, and do not waste taxpayer dollars.

“As a result of this work, we are pleased to announce that we, along with Crime Subcommittee Ranking Member Sheila Jackson Lee and a bipartisan group of leaders on this issue, will introduce companion legislation to the sentencing reform portion of the Senate bill unveiled last week by Senators Grassley, Durbin, Cornyn, Leahy, Booker and others.

“We are also continuing our work on additional bills that address other aspects of our criminal justice system, including over-criminalization, prison and reentry reform, including youth and juvenile justice issues, improved criminal procedures and policing strategies, and civil asset forfeiture reform and we expect to roll out more bills addressing these topics over the coming weeks.”

Press Conference Details: On Thursday, October 8 at 9:15 a.m., Chairman Goodlatte, Ranking Member Conyers, and other Committee members will hold a press conference to unveil bipartisan sentencing reform legislation. It will be held in HVC Studio A (HVC 114). Members of the media planning to cover should RSVP to Jessica Collins at jessica.collins@mail.house.gov.

Additional Background: In June 2015, building upon the work of the Committee’s Over-Criminalization Task Force, Chairman Goodlatte and Ranking Member Conyers announced a criminal justice legislative reform initiative to address problems within our nation's criminal justice system.  The House Judiciary Committee then held a criminal justice reform listening session and heard from over a dozen Members of Congress on this issue. More information on the House Judiciary Committee’s work on criminal justice reform can be found here.