Will Prez Biden say anything about any criminal justice matters during his first State of the Union address tonight?

As is this blog’s focus, I tend to focus most of my attention during presidential State of the Union addresses on whether the President focuses any attention on criminal justice issues.  More often than not over the nearly 20 years of this blog, I come away disappointed (but not especially surprised) that no mention gets made of the issues that are central to this blog. 

But, providing a notable reminder of the different world we lived in not all long ago, it may at this moment be worth recalling that Prez Trump in SotU 2018 talked about “reforming our prisons” and need to “get much tougher on drug dealers” and in SotU 2019 gave considerable attention to criminal justice reform after having just signed the FIRST STEP Act.

Circa early 2022, with a war on-going in Europe and and a pandemic and economic worries still very fresh at home, I would be quite surprised if any criminal justice reform issues get serious mention tonight.  That said, this is technically the first SotU since George Floyd’s murder touched off nationwide protests about police practices, and we still appear to be in the midst of an increase in murders in many parts of the country and in the midst of an increase in public concerns about crime more generally.  In addition, I do expect Prez Biden to say many good things about his new SCOTUS nominee, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, and that might necessarily include comments about he rich criminal justice professional background.

So, dear readers, do you think Prez Biden will say anything about criminal justice matters tonight?  Do you think he should and if so, what should he say?