Top Trends in Criminal Legal Reform, 2025

Overview

The United States maintains one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, incarcerating its residents at a substantially higher rate than any other industrialized nation. Certain state legislatures adopted criminal legal reforms in 2025, while other elected officials used punitive talking points to reinforce fears of crime. However, formerly incarcerated activists and lawmakers worked in certain cases to scale back mass incarceration. Advocacy organizers and officials in at least 10 states adopted criminal legal reforms in 2025 that may contribute to decarceration, guarantee voting rights for legal system-impacted citizens, and advance youth justice reforms.

Decarceration Reforms

State lawmakers enacted legal reforms to expand post-conviction release remedies. During 2025, policymakers in Delaware, Georgia, and Maryland adopted or expanded second look and rehabilitation-based release policies authorizing reconsideration of certain criminal legal sentences after a term of years.

• Delaware policymakers passed Senate Bill 10, also known as the Richard “Mouse” Smith Compassionate Release Act, which expanded its sentence review process to all rehabilitated individuals who have served at least 25 years in prison, and to those over 60 years old who have served at least 15 years. The previous policy allowed sentence reviews for persons under 18 years old at the time of their offense and who served at least 20 years in prison.
• Lawmakers in Georgia adopted House Bill 582, the Georgia Survivors Justice Act. The bill allows for sentencing courts to depart from statutory mandatory minimum penalties when abuse significantly contributed to the offense. The bill also authorizes resentencing for currently incarcerated survivors of domestic violence, dating violence, or child abuse by authorizing survivors to petition for a reduced sentence if their prior convictions were impacted by their abuse.
• Maryland lawmakers established a “second look” policy with House Bill 853, allowing people ages 18–25 at the time of their offense to petition for sentence reconsideration after serving 20 years, excluding those convicted of crimes of a sexual nature or killing a first responder, and those sentenced to life without parole. Lawmakers also passed House Bill 1123, which broadens medical and geriatric parole. It allows release for anyone who is chronically debilitated or incapacitated and no longer poses a danger, regardless of standard parole timelines, and permits the state’s Parole Commission to consider geriatric parole for people 65 or older who have served at least 20 years.

Sentencing Reform: Scaling Back State Cocaine Sentencing Disparities

In 2025, Arizona and Virginia became the latest states to address the crack-powder sentencing disparity.

• Lawmakers in Arizona passed House Bill 2720, and removed the lower‑quantity threshold for “hydrolyzed cocaine” (which includes crack cocaine) and aligned it with the nine‑gram threshold for powdered cocaine. Under the law change, crack and powder cocaine are now punished under the same quantity-based standard.
• Virginia policymakers passed Senate Bill 888 in 2025. The new law removes the legal distinction between crack and powder cocaine for purposes of sentencing — effectively ending the disparity.

Collateral Consequences of Conviction

Criminal convictions can impact justice-involved persons long after they complete their sentence. Efforts to reform collateral consequences in 2025 helped guarantee voting rights for persons impacted by the legal system in Connecticut, Colorado, and Washington state, while Illinois lawmakers passed a law authorizing expungement for persons with certain criminal convictions.

Guaranteeing Voting Rights and Ballot Access

While over four million persons are ineligible to vote because of a felony conviction, reforms to guarantee voting access were adopted this year in Colorado, Connecticut, and Washington state.

Lawmakers approved the Colorado Voting Rights Act, or Senate Bill 25-001. This codified several voting rights protections, including mandating that local jurisdictions not impose “unnecessary burdens” or restrictions on voters incarcerated to local jails — meaning voters cannot be discriminated against solely because they are incarcerated. The provision strengthened 2024’s Senate Bill 24–072, which requires county sheriffs and county clerks to provide at least one day of in person voting. According to the Colorado Secretary of State, approximately 2,600 eligible incarcerated voters cast ballots from jail in the 2024 general election.

Connecticut policymakers adopted House Bill 7229 to ensure that incarcerated people who remain legally eligible to vote can more easily request and cast absentee ballots while in detention or jail. The bill reduces procedural barriers and directs the Connecticut Department of Correction to receive tailored absentee‑ballot application forms from the Connecticut Secretary of the State’s office and make them available to incarcerated voters.

Washington state lawmakers adopted Senate Bill 5077 to allow the Governor, in partnership with the Secretary of State, to authorize automatic voter registration at designated state agencies. The bill creates a legal pathway for county jails and state prisons to automatically register incarcerated residents.

Expunging Certain Criminal Convictions

Illinois lawmakers authorized expungement of certain criminal convictions with the passage of House Bill 1836, the Illinois Clean Slate Act. The measure allows automatic record sealing for certain offenses when implemented in 2029 by requiring the Illinois State Police to regularly identify eligible records — misdemeanor and certain felony convictions — and automatically seal them. Illinois joins twelve other states and Washington, DC which have passed clean slate policies.

Advancing Youth Justice

Lawmakers in California, Hawaii, and Washington state adopted policies that demonstrated a commitment to supporting young defendants, including imposing limits on non-custodial probation for youth, establishing a minimum age for delinquency prosecution, and funding community-based diversion programs with standardized reporting to improve youth outcomes.

• California lawmakers adopted Assembly Bill 1376 to limit non-custodial probation for justice-involved youth. Under the new law, youth on probation may generally serve no more than 12 months from their most recent hearing. AB 1376 aims to curb “endless” probation for youth and reduce over‑supervision.
• In Hawaii, policymakers adopted Senate Bill 691 to set a minimum age of 12 years old for prosecuting or adjudicating youth for alleged crimes.
• In Washington state, Governor Bob Ferguson signed House Bill 1391 into law. The new law provides grant funding to local governments for community-based diversion initiatives, improving access to youth diversion statewide. It also establishes uniform data collection and reporting standards to measure the success of these programs and improve outcomes for youth.

Emerging Developments in the Criminal Legal System

Despite reforms, 2025 saw proposals including Maryland’s Senate Bill 925 to raise mandatory minimums for major drug offenses, Nebraska’s Legislative Bill 556 to lower the age for adult charges to 12, and Maine’s Question 1 voter ID referendum that could have undermined incarcerated voters’ ballot access. While none of these measures passed, they show how persistent the obstacles are to changing the nation’s punitive criminal legal system.

Additionally, officials in several states – Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Montana, and South Dakota – are planning new prisons or expanded bed capacity at existing correctional facilities, given changes in state prison populations. Arkansas and Montana are among the five states that reached peak levels of imprisonment in 2023. Planned prison projects include:

• In Arkansas, state officials are actively planning a 3,000 bed facility and advanced a $750 million appropriation for the new construction in 2025. Directly impacted and local advocates are organizing to oppose the new prison and support policy solutions to reduce prison admissions.
• Illinois lawmakers are committed to closing two older prisons while appropriating $900 million to build two 1,500 bed prisons.
• Policymakers in Montana approved an additional $436 million this year to add new prison beds at existing correctional facilities and plan for new prison construction.
• Oregon officials requested $3 million to conduct a feasibility study to replace an older prison and plan for increased correctional capacity for older incarcerated persons.
• South Dakota lawmakers approved a $650 million plan to build a new 1,500 bed men’s prison to replace an older prison.

Recommendations to Challenge Mass Incarceration

Changes in policy and practice contributed to a 25% decline in imprisonment between 2009 and 2021. However, state prison populations grew between 2022 and in 2023; 39 states increased their prison populations.  In 2025, lawmakers continued to move reforms forward aimed at reducing incarceration, challenging collateral consequences, and advancing youth justice. These measures represent meaningful but modest progress to impact the scale of incarceration. More comprehensive, system-wide reforms remain necessary to truly transform the adult and youth criminal legal systems.

For example, changes could include:

• Scaling Back Extreme Sentences: Recommended reforms include limiting maximum prison terms to 20 years; repealing mandatory minimums; expanding medical and geriatric parole; establishing universal “Second Look” sentencing review practices; ending Life-Without-Parole (LWOP) sentences and authorizing presumptive parole.
• Challenging Collateral Consequences: As of 2024, four million persons with a felony conviction were disenfranchised, despite most living in the community. While much progress has been made, voter suppression laws have proliferated in recent years, and millions are still denied the vote. Guaranteeing voting rights for persons completing their sentence inside and outside of prison or jail, in alignment with reforms to challenge collateral consequences, will ensure a true democracy for all.
• Decarcerating Youth: States should adopt reforms that prevent or limit youth transfers to adult court and keep youth out of adult jails. At the same time, they should expand youth diversion and limit the incarceration of youth by supporting community-based alternatives.