When the crack epidemic overtook several major American cities in the 1980s, federal lawmakers reacted with the kind of sensible restraint and reasoned legislation you’ve come to expect from our wisest congressma–HAHAHA LOL NOOOO, they just threw everyone in jail with the hope that, basically, if the entire African American populace were locked up, they wouldn’t be able to bother the white people who just want urban areas to consist of an organic butcher and an organic butcher and maybe like two more organic butchers.
Mandatory minimum sentences led to the United States having one of the highest incarceration rates in the developed world, creating a bloated, underfunded prison system which fails at its most basic obligation, that being the rehabilitation of criminals.
Barack Obama has always pledged to do something about non-violent drug offenders who are unreasonably in jail and today he commuted the sentences of 46 people, including many who would be out of jail if the somewhat more reasonable statutes we have in place now were applied to their cases. From The Washington Post.
President Obama on Monday commuted the sentences of 46 drug offenders in federal prisons, as part of his administration’s effort to reform the criminal justice system.
Obama’s clemency to non-violent drug offenders comes as the administration is working to reduce operating costs and overcrowding in federal prisons, as well as to provide relief to inmates who were sent to prison under the harsh sentencing guidelines put in place in the late 1980s as the country was grappling with the crime and violence associated with crack cocaine.
The latest round of commutations comes days before Obama is set to visit a federal prison in Oklahoma on Thursday in the first such visit by a sitting U.S. president to a federal prison. He is also expected to address his administration’s effort to overhaul the criminal justice system in a speech Tuesday at the NAACP’s annual conference in Philadelphia.
Meanwhile, New York City announced it would drop bail requirements for non-violent crimes to help alleviate the horrific situation that is Rikers Island right now.
Hey, isn’t it cool when we do good things?
We should do more good things.