In what seems to be a small story, President Obama today has announced the commutation of dozens of federal prisoners charged with non-violent drug offenses.
via Rawstory
In an effort to pare down the massive number of people serving long prison sentences for non-violent, drug-related offenses, President Barack Obama will free dozens of federal prisoners in the coming weeks, the New York Times reports.
While the president is expected to commute the sentences of a rough total of 80 people soon, it’s just a small fraction of the 30,000 prisoners who applied for clemency. But it’s part of a broader move to correct what many agree to be a national pattern of gross over-sentencing, thanks to years of “tough on crime” politicians who instituted mandatory minimum sentencing, according to the Times.
(snip)
Attorney, author and activist Michelle Alexander has pointed out that mass incarceration disproportionately affects men of color. The author of the paradigm-shifting book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, said that more black men were in the clutches of the criminal justices system in modern times than were enslaved in 1850.
Once again another seemingly small but all too important BFD. Non-violent drug offenses accounted for over 50% of all arrests made from 2010-2014. Of that, a great majority of these arrests were for offenses related to marijuana, a drug that by all accounts has accepted use amongst a plurality of voting Americans.
Michelle Alexander, one of my favorite authors on this particular topic, was quoted in the article as saying that more black men are in the criminal justice system of modern times than were enslaved in the 1850s. It is obvious that this is a problem not only for the federal governments, but for the states as well. President Obama's actions today have relieved some of that pressure. About 7 dozen prisoners will have their sentences commuted. About 80 lives will be resumed after being ruined over narcotics. The damage is done to these people, but ultimately they will have their freedom back.
But what of the other 33,000 applicants for commutation based on their status as a non-violent drug offender? These people are languishing in federal prison with little hope for clemency simply because the system is overwhelmed with applicants.
Welcome to the beginning of the end of the war on drugs. Its gonna take a long fucking time to unwind this mess -- brought to you by your local idiotic racist authoritarian conservative. Make sure and take some time out to thank these fuckwits for ruining America.