Murdoch’s Fox News Endorses Prison Reform Legislation

The Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox, the media conglomerate which includes Fox News, has endorsed wide-sweeping prison reform legislation.

In a statement on Thursday, FOX announced their support for the First Step Act, which has been championed by White House adviser Jared Kushner:

FOX supports the bipartisan First Step Act to limit mandatory minimum sentences, prevent recidivism and expand rehabilitation. FOX looks forward to providing corporate support to programs implementing these objectives and to telling the compelling stories of redemption that result from common sense criminal justice reform.

The First Step Act has garnered support from fellow billionaires, such as the libertarian Koch brothers and George Soros.

The prison reform legislation includes an overhaul of the country’s criminal justice system by reducing mandatory minimum sentences and broadening early release credits for convicted felons who are deemed to be “non-violent criminals.”

Additionally, the First Step Act makes the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 retroactive, reducing the disparity between crack and powder cocaine sentences, impacting nearly 3,000 inmates. The bill also includes a largescale recidivism reduction program that expands “earned time credits,” allowing inmates to be released to halfway houses or home confinement to finish out their sentences.

The legislation ends the current “three-strikes rule” — which gives an automatic life sentence to three-time convicted violent felons — and instead reduces their sentences to 25 years in prison.

Likewise, the prison reform plan reduces the sentences of drug traffickers, cutting their current automatic at least 20 years in prison sentence down by at least five years and allows them to participate in programs to further reduce their sentences.