Women in Criminal Justice Reform Act

Key Points

• The bill requires federal officers to let arrested parents arrange care for their children before calling child welfare, and specifies that a drug charge alone is not grounds to suspect child abuse or neglect. It also creates a $20 million annual grant program for gender-informed police training.
• Title IV tackles the so-called 'girlfriend problem' in drug conspiracy cases, capping conspiracy penalties at 5 years instead of matching the sentence of the main offender. It also limits defendants' liability to only the drug quantities they personally knew about and agreed to.
• Federal prisons would be required to provide comprehensive women's healthcare including OB-GYN access, cancer screenings, STI testing, free menstrual supplies, and gender-specific nutrition standards. Nutraloaf and food-based punishment would be banned.
• The bill extends the timeline before states can move to terminate parental rights from 15 months to 24 consecutive months and bars termination based solely on a parent's incarceration, immigration detention, or deportation. It also creates new temporary release options for custody hearings.
• A new federal pretrial diversion program would allow courts to send defendants into community-based treatment, job training, and counseling instead of prison. People with histories of trauma, pregnancy, disability, or homelessness would get priority.
• Judges would gain new power to sentence below mandatory minimums when defendants cannot cooperate with prosecutors due to fear of violence, or when the government fails to show a defendant has useful information. Current law only allows below-minimum sentences on a government motion.