With the Obama administration in favor of the reformation of nonviolent drug offenders by reducing prison sentencing, advocated are surprised why only eight federal inmates have their sentences commuted during the holidays.
Julie Stewart, working with Families Against Mandatory Minimums, says, “Well, it’s a start, albeit a disappointingly small one. Given the administration’s pronouncement that it wants to grant more clemencies, I was surprised they granted the exact same number of commutations as last December.”
All of these inmates were serving lengthy prison sentences with half of them being for life and related to drugs such as methamphetamine and crack cocaine too.
The reason why advocates are a bit surprised with the number of offenders granted commutations this year is because the Justice Department made an announcement in April, making it easier for the administration to grant pardons or reduce prison sentences of non-violent offenders.
In fact, this initiative has been considered to be a way to identify inmates who are serving mandatory minimum sentences that are inappropriate and outdated in an efficient and effective manner.
While the Deputy Attorney, James Cole, believes that Obama has reaffirmed his commitment to the initiative, a number of advocacy groups regarded the number of commutes pardoned this year to be “a disgrace in an era of mass imprisonment”.
The advocacy groups backed their statement by saying that no marijuana, LSD and powder cocaine offenders, amounting to almost 2000 federal inmates, were able to obtain shorter sentences based on the administration’s new criteria.
In order to be pardoned, non-violent offenders must have served at least 10 years of their sentence, remained in good conduct when in prison with no history of violence prior or during their incarceration.