President Biden announced on Friday that he would commute the sentences of nearly 2,500 inmates serving long prison terms for nonviolent drug offenses It is the broadest commutation of individual sentences ever issued by a U.S. president.
The commutations are for offenders who received harsher sentences for drug crimes than they would under current practices, a move to reverse longstanding criminal justice disparities, Biden said. Those disparities disproportionately affected Black people and fueled mass incarceration.
“This action is an important step toward righting historic wrongs, correcting sentencing disparities and providing deserving individuals the opportunity to return to their families and communities after spending far too much time behind bars,” said, the New York Times reports.
The commutations add to Biden’s sweeping use of his clemency powers as he prepares to leave office. He also has commuted the sentences of nearly all prisoners on federal death row and a single-day record of 1,500 commutations for those moved to home confinement during the pandemic.
Biden still is considering pardons, which wipe out convictions, and more commutations, which leave the guilty verdict intact but reduce some or all of the punishment, in the coming days. Biden could issue dpre-emptive pardons for former elected officials and other people President-elect Trump may target for political retribution.
Biden said Friday's commutations would help those who received sentences based on now-discredited distinctions between crack and powder cocaine, or faced inflated charges for drug crimes.
Biden sai he was following the lead of Congress, which has passed legislation to remedy decades-long disparities spurred by tough-on-crime laws, such as mandatory minimum sentences. As a senator, Biden championed one such law, the 1994 crime bill.
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