Federal prison task force to start meeting in January

The task force that Congress mandated earlier this year to look at mandatory sentencing and other ways to resolve overcrowding in the federal prison system will start meeting in January. 

Former Rep. J.C. Watts Jr. (R–Okla.) has been named chairman of the Charles Colson Task Force on Federal Corrections and former Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.) has been given the role of vice chairman.

Next Tuesday, retiring Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), a longtime advocate for prison reform, and Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.) will hold a press conference at the Capitol to discuss the group’s mission and name its members.  

Fattah is the ranking member of the House Appropriations subcommittee on Justice, which led the effort to create the nine-member bipartisan group. The task force is expected to identify what drives prison population growth and corrections costs, develop policies to resolve the issues and submit a final report with recommendations to Congress, the attorney general and the president by next December. 

The task force is named after Chuck Colson, who created the world’s largest family of prison ministries after serving time in federal prison for his role in the Watergate scandal. The group will hold five meetings throughout the year.