This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, June 6th, 2019.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Now that some of the first prisoners are being released in accordance with the First

Step Act signed late last year, the White House is moving to help reintegrate these

former inmates into society.

Kevin Ring, president of the FAM Foundation, says it's a positive move with beneficial political

implications for the president,

a prison reform more broadly still requires a sea change in attitudes toward

former inmates.

In December of last year, the president signed into law the First Step Act, which I've heard described in this building by Cato folks and outside the building by others.

It is both a fairly minor reform, but also the most significant

reform the U.S. has had in decades. And now there are a lot of federal prisoners that are taking the first

steps to being released under the terms of the First Step Act and the White House at least is doing taking some action to try to help these people re-aclimate into society.

So what does that look like? What and we should couch this with it by saying this is all on the wrong end of the of the fight over reforming prisons. But to the extent that this is where we are, what are the steps that

ought to be taken here to help people who have been released from prison to be re-aclimated,

to be reintegratedlimated into society.

Right, well this is a place where good policy and good politics mix because if you're the

president you sign this bill and you plan to run on this accomplishment, you want to make sure that the people who are released under it succeed.

And so I think that's why you're seeing this effort.

And this effort is both a public and private sector effort to make sure the people coming out early under the bill can find employment,

which means some basic things like getting IDs, getting Social Security cards, finding

housing.

...