JustLeadershipUSA Releases 2025-2029 Roadmap for the Trump Administration and New Congress on Key Solutions for the Criminal Legal System

Today, JustLeadershipUSA (JLUSA) is proud to announce the release of its 2025-2029 Roadmap, a guide for the Trump administration and new Congress on key structural, regulatory, and legislative solutions critical to improving the safety and opportunities for America’s citizens. These recommendations focus on creating economic mobility through unlocking access to resources to fulfill basic human needs, from healthcare to housing, ensuring individuals have the tools to rebuild their lives post-incarceration. By creating pathways for our citizens to fully participate in the economy by supporting successful reintegration, we empower those who have been impacted by the system to thrive in society. This roadmap is a call to action for lawmakers to embrace policies that create lasting change and advance justice for all.

Here are some highlights from the Roadmap:

Executive Actions

• National Council on Criminal Justice: JLUSA proposes creating a standing body co-chaired by a Criminal Justice Advisor and the Domestic Policy Council, ensuring actionable reforms with input from advocacy organizations and systems-impacted leaders.
• Criminal Justice Advisor: Appoint a formerly incarcerated individual as a direct advisor to the President, ensuring federal policies are shaped by lived experiences.

Administrative Changes

• Strengthen Federal requirements for Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act grantees to better align individuals with conviction histories with high-quality, industry-related training opportunities, and center their voices in service design and delivery.
• Remove discretionary bans on public housing for people with a conviction history: These arbitrary, discretionary bans on public housing for people with a conviction history are disproportionate across PHA’s and expand the denial of a basic human need that exacerbates the economic and racial inequalities that plague people with conviction histories.

Legislation

• Amend the Fair Credit Reporting Act: Align conviction history reporting restrictions with those for other adverse information and require that consumers receive adverse reporting before the requesting agency.
• Pass the Smart Sentencing Adjustment Act: Provide incentives for states to reduce incarceration rates and support alternatives to imprisonment.
• Invest New Funding to Existing Congressional Reentry Programs to Match the Scope and Scale of Mass Criminalization and Carceral Control: Reauthorize the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) – (H.R.6655) inclusive of a fully-codified national reentry title and the Second Chance Act (S.4477/H.R. 8028) inclusive of broadened provisions for housing, recovery, and workforce development.
• Repeal the Felony Drug Ban on SNAP and TANF Benefits: The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) imposed a lifetime ban on food assistance (SNAP) and cash assistance benefits (TANF) for people with a previous state or federal drug felony conviction and denies people access to essential food and social supports.

Download the full 2025-2029 Roadmap.

It’s time for a new vision of economic opportunity and justice that allows all systems-impacted individuals to thrive, moving beyond the unsustainable economic and social costs of mass incarceration. The federal government, with its unparalleled capacity to drive systems change and set national agendas, must lead the way in reimagining and optimizing existing policies to address the consequences of the carceral system. As this roadmap emphasizes, we must prioritize efforts that foster authentic, sustainable economic opportunities, creating a future where justice and opportunity are accessible to all.

Learn more about how we are elevating issues impacting the 70+ million Americans with lived experience at the Federal level through the JustUS Coordinating Council (JCC) at justuscc.org.