http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/04/us/obama-plans-b... WASHINGTON - Sometime in the next few weeks, aides expect President Obama to issue orders freeing dozens of federal prisoners locked up on nonviolent drug offenses. With the stroke of his pen, he will probably commute more sentences at one time than any president has in nearly half a century. The expansive use of his clemency power is part of a broader effort by Mr. Obama to correct what he sees as the excesses of the past, when politicians eager to be tough on crime threw away the key even for minor criminals. With many Republicans and Democrats now agreeing that the nation went too far, Mr. Obama holds the power to unlock that prison door, especially for young African-American and Hispanic men disproportionately affected. But even as he exercises authority more assertively than any of his modern predecessors, Mr. Obama has only begun to tackle the problem he has identified. In the next weeks, the total number of commutations for Mr. Obama's presidency may surpass 80, but more than 30,000 federal inmates have come forward in response to his administration's call for clemency applications. A cumbersome review process has advanced only a small fraction of them. And just a small fraction of those have reached the president's desk for a signature. “I think they honestly want to address some of the people who have been oversentenced in the last 30 years,†said Julie Stewart, the founder and president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, a group advocating changes in sentencing. “I'm not sure they envisioned that it would be as complicated as it is, but it has become more complicated, whether it needs to be or not, and that's what has bogged down the process.†Overhauling the criminal justice system has become a bipartisan venture. Like Mr. Obama, Republicans running for his job are calling for systemic changes. Lawmakers from both parties are collaborating on legislation. And the United States Sentencing Commission has revised guidelines for drug offenders, so far retroactively reducing sentences for more than 9,500 inmates, nearly three-quarters of them black or Hispanic. The drive to recalibrate the system has brought together groups from across the political spectrum. The Center for American Progress, a liberal advocacy organization with close ties to the White House and Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton, has teamed up with Koch Industries, the conglomerate owned by the conservative brothers Charles G. and David H. Koch, who finance Republican candidates, to press for reducing prison populations and overhauling sentencing. “It's a time when conservatives and liberals and libertarians and lots of different people on the political spectrum†have “come together in order to focus attention on excessive sentences, the costs and the like, and the need to correct some of those excesses,†said Neil Eggleston, the White House counsel who recommends clemency petitions to Mr. Obama. “So I think the president sees the commutations as a piece of that entire process.†The challenge has been finding a way to use Mr. Obama's clemency power in the face of bureaucratic and legal hurdles without making a mistake that would be devastating to the effort's political viability. The White House has not forgotten the legacy of Willie Horton, a convicted murderer who raped a woman while furloughed from prison and became a powerful political symbol that helped doom the presidential candidacy of Gov. Michael S. Dukakis of Massachusetts in 1988. But with time running short in Mr. Obama's presidency, the White House has pushed the Justice Department to send more applicants more quickly. Mr. Eggleston told the department not to interpret guidelines too narrowly because it is up to the president to decide, according to officials. If it seems like a close case, he told the department to send it over. Deborah Leff, the department's pardon attorney, has likewise pressed lawyers representing candidates for clemency to hurry up and send more cases her way. “If there is one message I want you to take away today, it's this: Sooner is better,†she told lawyers in a video seminar obtained by USA Today. “Delaying is not helpful.†Under the Constitution, the president has the power to grant “pardons for offenses against the United States†or to commute federal sentences. A pardon is an act of presidential forgiveness and wipes away any remaining legal liabilities from a conviction. A commutation reduces a sentence but does not eliminate a conviction or restore civil rights lost as a result of the conviction. In recent times, attention has focused on presidential pardons because they have become politically controversial, such as Gerald R. Ford's pardon of Richard M. Nixon, the elder George Bush's pardons of Iran-contra figures and Bill Clinton's pardons of the financier Marc Rich and scores of others. Modern presidents have been far less likely to commute sentences. Lyndon B. Johnson commuted the sentences of 80 convicted criminals in the 1966 fiscal year, and no president since then has matched that in his entire administration, much less in a single year. Ronald Reagan commuted only 13 sentences in eight years in office, while George W. Bush commuted just 11 in the same amount of time. The elder Mr. Bush commuted three sentences in his four years. Mr. Obama started out much like the others, commuting just one sentence in his first five years in office. But in his first term he signed a law easing sentencing for new inmates by reducing the disparity between crack and powder cocaine, while his attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr., issued new guidelines to prosecutors to avoid charges requiring excessive prison terms. In his second term, Mr. Obama embarked on an effort to use clemency and has raised his total commutations to 43, a number he may double this month. The initiative was begun last year by James M. Cole, then the deputy attorney general, who set criteria for who might qualify: generally nonviolent inmates who have served more than 10 years in prison, have behaved well while incarcerated and would not have received as lengthy a sentence under today's revised rules. “It's a touchy situation,†Mr. Cole said in an interview. “You don't want to just supplant a judge's determination of sentence.†But after reviewing many clemency petitions, he said, “I'd seen a number of them where the sentences seemed very high for the conduct and it noted that the judge at the time of sentencing thought the sentence was too high. We looked at that and thought this really isn't supplanting the judge.†To respond to Mr. Cole's call, several groups formed a consortium of lawyers to prepare applications for inmates, including the American Bar Association, the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and Ms. Stewart's advocacy group. The more than 30,000 inmates who applied inundated the effort. The consortium, called Clemency Project 2014, now has more than 50 law firms, more than 20 law schools and more than 1,500 lawyers participating. But the process is burdensome as the volunteer lawyers try to dig out documents from more than a decade ago to satisfy the criteria. So far, they have screened out 13,000 inmates who did not meet the guidelines and sent just over 50 applications to the Justice Department. Cynthia W. Roseberry, who left her job as a top federal public defender in Georgia to lead the project, said it took a while to set up a process but it has now been streamlined. “The lawyers will be able to do the analysis a lot quicker and we'll be able to move them faster,†she said. Aside from the Clemency Project, the Justice Department has received more than 6,600 applications for commutations since Mr. Cole outlined the criteria, more than twice the rate over a similar period earlier in Mr. Obama's presidency. Ms. Leff, the pardon attorney, has solicited volunteers from around the department to give a day or more a week to help out, but her office is taxed. The White House has asked Congress to increase funding for the office from $3.9 million this year to $5.9 million next year. Margaret Love, who served as pardon attorney under the first Mr. Bush and Mr. Clinton and now represents prisoners applying for clemency, said the process had become a mess. “It's really poor management,†she said. “These are people who don't have any history with sentence reduction. They've been putting people in prison all their lives. They don't know how to get them out.†Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has expressed concern that the Justice Department has essentially outsourced a government function to the Clemency Project 2014. Department officials dispute that, saying the project does the same thing lawyers have always done in helping candidates for clemency prepare applications. The department noted that it still reviews the cases and makes it own judgments before sending recommendations to the White House. Officials acknowledged that it was slow in starting the effort. “There was a start-up time, but now we're really in it,†said Emily Pierce, a department spokeswoman. “We feel we're moving at a good pace.†In December, Mr. Obama commuted the sentences of eight drug offenders, and in March he followed up with 22 more. If he accepts most of the latest applications sent to the White House, some officials said it would probably double that last batch of 22, exceeding the 36 commutations Mr. Clinton issued at one time on his last day in office. Among those Mr. Obama granted clemency in March were eight prisoners serving life sentences for crimes like possession with intent to distribute cocaine, growing more than 1,000 marijuana plants or possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Mr. Obama signed letters to the recipients explaining that they had demonstrated the potential to turn their lives around. “By doing so, you will affect not only your own life, but those close to you,†he wrote. “You will also influence, through your example, the possibility that others in your circumstances get their own second chance in the future. “I believe in your ability to prove the doubters wrong,†he added. “So good luck, and Godspeed.â€
Good news. Hopefully the program starts to gain some legs and the states take notice of this. We have far too many people in this county for absurdly long times for nonviolent offenses. These people often get out of jail and are right back in cause they have mental health issues and have no means to get access to medication. In addition most find it impossible to get a job even if they want to start fresh and are essentially forced back in to old habits. Or they violate some part of their parole and they are back in prison without even commuting another major crime. It's costing is us far too much and we may we want to talk about other solutions for these issues it seems. Hopefully the the "tough on crime" politics rhetoric becomes less used and acceptable in our society. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/locked-up-in-america/
It's ridiculous people go to jail over nonviolent drug crimes...then again the investors in these prisons have to show a return on their investment.
Gotta give him credit, and the often-maligned Koch Brothers as well. It's a start and hopefully, someday, all non-violent drug offenders will be released from prison.
Since ab 109 went into effect in ca crime is up almost 20% in my county. It's funny you all think these non violent offenders are just potheads that got busted with a sac. They are tweakers that just get back out there robbing and stealing to get their fix. You want to know what happens when the fools get busted. Nothing. The police literally can't do anything. When you call them now they will ask if anyone is in danger. If not they will just have you file paper work. This keep up the great work Mr prez destroying this country one stone at a time. http://blog.la-criminal-defense.com/crime-california-prison-realignment/
No, he is saying that quite a few since they were imprisoned with actual criminals have acquired an education-in-crime. Now being more of a danger than they ever were all thanks to us. Edit: I don't really know wtf he is saying actually, but that is how I feel about imprisoning non violent drug offenders, and traffickers since it is up for discussion and I want to be inclusive and accurate here.
I realise what he is saying. Junkies who would sooner burn down a building than pass up a fix are being released. But that's irrelevent If they are criminals they should have been arrested for a crime. Not a drug "offense" He is just trying to find anything he can to make Obama's actions bad -yuri
The problem is this belief is founded in ignorance of the system. There are many people who are sent to jail for stupid shit like stealing a beer can who go to prison for multiple years. Often times a lot of these people are people with mental issues like schizophrenia and run out of access to their medicine leading them to do crazy shit like abuse cheap illegal drugs because they can't get access to their actual meds. In this country we need a stronger mental health care system so that many of these people can get the drug treatment or mental health treatment they deserve and not just be locked up. Just putting a drug addict does very little to solve the problem if they can't get access to treatment. Another big issue is that these people are almost doomed to a cycle of prison. If you've ever seen shawshank redemption it is a little scary that a story so old can be so on point about prisoner issues. When you leave prison you are required in many cases to make certain meeting, pay fees, and in many cases have a job/permanent residence otherwise you end up back in jail. Sure, these do sound like reasonable things to expect an ex con to have to get. The problem is there are no jobs for these people cause no one is willing to hire them and they end up back in jail for violating parole. In addition the system creates its own inherent problems of institutionalizing a person where they can't live on their own. Imagine you went to jail for stealing from a supermarket and you are addicted to crack. You haven't had any access to drug rehab and you are constantly surrounded by all sorts of illegal shit and actual criminals. Then you are let out with no money, no home, and most of your relatives have given up on you. You have nothing in this world and no one will hire you. It's easy to say why do these people not just get a job and why do they always end up back in prison. The simple answer is that there is basically no alternative to a lot of these people except committing more crime. Eventually in this hypothetical the guy will most likely end up on the street using crack again and committing little crimes to support the habit. The problem is we don't actually try to treat the underlying problems these inmates have by spending a little more money, and instead just want to lock them away. Incarceration without actual rehabilitation doesn't do society that much good. Of course we should lock up rapists and murderers, but we seem to have a large prison population who are drug addicts and petty thieves. We've hit the point as a society where we jail 1/4th if the worlds prison population. I understand America is different from other nations but those numbers make it pretty clear that America incarcerates too many individuals. Another scary recent trend is people being sent to jail for not being able to pay ridiculous fines for parking and other shenanigans. Cases of people going to jail for a couple hundred dollar tickets is much more common than you think. It's a silly idea to imprison someone for not being able to pay a fine. It doesn't do any good because now that person can't pay the fine and we're gonna have to subsidize them at least 30-40 thousand a year for them to live. That is a very scary trend. We pay more per inmate in this county than we do on education. The problem is we are investing all these money in short term programs like prisons and diverting money from actual long term programs that have been noted to make a major impacts in crime like welfare programs, mental health programs, and better education opportunities. Another major issue in this country is bail. In many places as much as 30 percent of this prison population is people who couldn't afford bail. That's a mind boggling statistic. This means in some places almost 1/3rd of the population could be innocent and not deserve to be there at all. I know I'm gonna get flak for saying this because it's an idea that scares people but I think we need to start seriously talking about reforming the way we do bail in this country. The idea of bail is to get people to go to their trial. In theory, it sounds good get people to pay money temporarily until they go to court so they have an incentive to go to court. The problem is that there are many poor people who end up being locked up simply because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time and are too poor to afford bail. I personally believe bail should be determined not only based on the severity of the alleged crime but also on a persons level of income. If you have a job where you make 2-3 hundred per week then you aren't going to be able to pay a 1000 dollars bail when you get caught in possession of some kind of drug. However, if you set bail at maybe 1 or 2 hundred they would be able to pay the bail. Now you would say well if they only have to pay 100 then there is less incentive for him to come to trial. However this is flawed logic, because if someone only makes a couple hundred a week there's a pretty good chance they will show up if it means losing almost a weeks worth of pay. Many People will argue that they have no sympathy for these people and they shouldn't have committed crimes. Well this argument sounds good it doesn't address the disastrous police presence in our country who will charge people with the stupidest little shit. People don't realize how easy it is to end up in jail for a minor offense like public intoxication in places like Kentucky which is notorious for its large prison population. The thing is the bail system is not only unfair for poor people but extremely ineffective for very wealthy people. Say you have a billion dollars and are put on trial. Most bails max out around somewhere between 250 k and 1 million. Well this may seem like a crazy amount that would definitely get people to go to trial, it is a drop in the bucket for many wealthy people especially if they have plans on fleeing. In addition someone who makes 100 dollars a week has a much worse chance at being able to successfully run away than someone who has millions of dollars at their disposal. You may ask yourself why is this a problem? Well it is an issue because many of these people will go years without a proper trial. That means even if you win the trial and you are proven innocent you've had several years of your life taken away. No job is gonna wait a a year or two for people to get out of jail who can't afford bail meaning that person will most definitely lose their job if they had one. They will most likely lose their place of permanent residence cause they can't pay taxes or rent. Lastly, if they had any kind of significant other they will most likely move on. In addition, now taxpayers have to support the prisoner and pay for them instead of that person being self sufficient if they were given a reasonable bail that was within their range. The problem with bail is we are having citizens punished for very minimal crimes even if they are proven innocent. Imagine if you sat in prison for two years cause you couldn't afford bail and then were proven innocent. That means you spent two years in jail and your life is completely destroyed. You have no job, no home, no money, and probably have lost or damaged many personal relationships all because our bail policy isn't based in reality. We have many things in the criminal justice system that sound good in theory but work out horribly in reality. The bail in this country as well as the prison system is seriously fucked. I really strongly recommend you watch the links below. One is a funny clip from last week tonight with Jon Oliver about bail. The other is a link to PBS Frontline's website and the link is to two documentaries about the prison system in America. All the videos are extremely informative and is a good place to start for looking into Americas prison system. Sorry for the wall of text but there are a lot of complex issues to prison problems and they aren't as straightforward as "lock up all the bad guys" which is the mentality many seem to have including yourself. A lot of people forget that these criminals are just people who made mistakes and shouldn't be treated like some kind of monsters or rejects like many people treat them. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IS5mwymTIJU
Here's the link to two. frontline documentaries about the prison system. Everyone should watch these videos if they are interested in Americas justice systems http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/locked-up-in-america/
I know how the system works. I have a master's in CJ. My uncle is a CHP and have two other family members that are Correctional officer. I have seen it from top to bottom how much of a failure it is. But I also have seen how most of these criminals when given a choice would rather lead the life of crime over being a functioning member of society.
I don't understand tho. The people let out may be tweekers and potential criminals, but that's irrelevent . You even said it yourself. You are knowledgeable of the subject. So surely you believe in the right to a trial and being arrested for actually being bad right? The people released were arrested in drug charges. That's unacceptable. If they commit a real crime then they get a trial. You can't just get mad that they let junkies out while claiming that rhetoric. You look like you just want to hate in Obama more than anything -yuri
That's the point though ultimately. A junkie is going to be deterred from using drugs and commuting petty crimes by being thrown in prison. Maybe we should funnel these drug addicts into rehab and support groups where they can at least be given a chance to rehabilitate themselves and be self sufficient so they taxpayer doesn't have to foot the bill of their living expenses. I think in the long run locking up these people over seemingly small crimes is just going to lead to higher taxes and less actual rehabilitation for most prisoners. I'm not saying that there aren't some scumbags who will ignore the help they get and will just go back out and do those shitty things. Of course those cases exist. The problem is these people can't be helped and we shouldn't be dooming an entire population to rot in jail instead of receiving treatment just because it won't help everyone. I certainly think spending more on mental health care and drug rehabilitation would be more beneficial than the current system we have. It's not like they are just willy nilly giving clemency. There's a process to show that the prisoner is essentially behaving and desires to turn their life around. We're letting the shitty section of human beings cloud our judgement and its leading us to lock people up who probably many don't deserve to be there. We're kicking up people that we are mad at and not just people we are scared of. Incarceration shouldn't be the answer, it should be a last resort when someone is a clear and present danger to others to lock them up. I don't believe that overnight we can let out most of our prisoners. I do however think the United States locks up too many individuals and should consider policies to help resolve this issue even if there were still be some problems. At the end of the day it's very clear the way the legal system is currently set up there is too much room for error and problems with sentencing among other things. I'm sorry for coming off as condescending, I shouldn't have spoke in that tone.