An Obscure Commission Just Voted To Shorten The Sentences Of 46,000 Federal Drug Offenders by Ryan J. Reilly | Huffington Post | Posted: 07/18/2014 2:59 pm EDT Excerpts: WASHINGTON - "The U.S. Sentencing Commission on Friday afternoon voted unanimously to allow federal prisoners behind bars for certain drug trafficking crimes to petition to have their sentences reduced. The change is expected to impact around 46,000 current federal prisoners, and to lower sentences by an average of more than two years. The commission, made up of seven people, voted to allow tens of thousands of prisoners to petition judges for a sentencing reduction based on new guidelines. The implementation of the change will be delayed, however, with the first prisoners affected by the change likely to be released early in November 2015. "This amendment received unanimous support from Commissioners because it is a measured approach," Judge Patti B. Saris, the chairwoman of the Sentencing Commission, said in a statement. "It reduces prison costs and populations and responds to statutory and guidelines changes since the drug guidelines were initially developed, while safeguarding public safety." "We have been in ongoing discussions with the Commission during its deliberations on this issue, and conveyed the department's support for this balanced approach," Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement released Friday. Criminal justice advocates praised the change as a matter of fairness. "Today, seven people unanimously decided to change the lives of tens of thousands of families whose loved ones were given overly long drug sentences," Families Against Mandatory Minimums President Julie Stewart said in a statement. "FAMM commends the U.S. Sentencing Commission for its boldness, as well as federal judges, members of Congress, reform groups, and the more than 60,000 letter writers who joined with FAMM to demand that the Commission grant full retroactivity." "As we continue the march toward fairness in our country's failed, racially biased sentencing policies, we can't leave behind those who had the bad luck to receive their sentences before the policies were changed," said ACLU Senior Legislative Counsel Jesselyn McCurdy. read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/18/drug-sentencing-retroactivity_n_5600121.html ...... IMO: Mandatory sentencing just makes it easier for the judge hearing the case and does nothing constructive for first timers in a court, black defendants, and young kids with no previous convictions. But today they find themselves in prisons working out a court sentence that far outweighs any crime they committed. The cost to the country for exceedingly harsh sentences of various drug charges is now a thing of the past as soon as this reform is implemented in our prisons. Drug sellers are getting more time than attempted murder in some cases and overcrowds the prisons, thus costing taxpayers incredible amounts of money just to house these non-violent people. The sentence always exceeded the crime in many instances, especially in the young black community. We need to rescue these people that are essentially non-violent, received sentences before the newer rules were being discussed, and sat in prison for what would essentially be half their lives away from home and family for an extremely harsh sentencing that hasn't helped anyone. That it is a result of biased judges in a system made to restrain drug sellers harshly based at least in part by the color of their skin.
1. Your argument should be that judges are put in positions because we trust their judgement and mandatory minimums contradicts the concept of that placement, but instead you invoked the tired liberal race bait scheme. 2. Ya that's totally believable considering every single thing done by this administration has cut spending ...oh wait. 3. Ya that's definitely a problem, murderers should be jailed for life and drug sentences can stay the same. Problem solved. 4. Says who? Liberals? Liberals who think skyrocketing never ending black crime is just "the system being mean to coloreds"? Laugh. 5. Oh so now the judges are biased too? Hate to break it to you but the reason you see so many Blacks in jail is because Blacks commit more crime than other race groups. There I said, it plain and simple facts out in the open now better call me a racist. How about instead of trying to treat these poison pushers as special little snowflakes making excuses for their free choices, you open a frank dialogue with them and ask them why the hell are they choosing to be criminals? ..and I so shocked to see that Eric Holder is a part of this.
Partially wrong. Mandatory sentences do deprive judges of the opportunity to exercise judgment, but the reason WHY they have not been allowed to exercise judgment is because they did. Conservatives didn't like that. It costs, what, about $50,000 a year to keep an inmate in jails. Letting tens of thousands of nonviolent inmates out saves a bundle. Other programs are not the subject here. What problem are you referring to? The problem actually being addressed here is that there are many thousands of citizens, serving excessively long sentences, for doing something now entirely legal in Colorado! Keeping those people jailed doesn't solve the problem, it IS the problem! Says the statistics. To claim that blacks are way overrepresented among those in jail because they commit more crimes, and the proof that they commit more crimes is that they are overrepresented in jails, is circular reasoning. You may be correct, but in this particular case we are talking about a specific set of crimes, namely nonviolent drug offenses. I'm not familiar with any statistical study showing that blacks tend to commit more than their share of nonviolent drug offenses. And why those doing exactly the same things in Colorado are NOT "choosing to be criminals". We're not really dealing with sociological subtleties here, like educational levels, employment opportunities, perceived advantages or lack of advantages to an education, poverty levels, possibly biased law enforcement, linguistic barriers, livestyle cycles, and all the rest. We're talking about permitting nonviolent drug law offenders to petition for shorter sentences on the grounds that (1) they do not represent a public danger and never did; (2) keeping those who are essentially non-criminals in jail costs a lot of money; (3) conviction of a serious crime generally shoft-circuits someone's entire life, even if the "crime" is legal elsewhere. The War On Drugs has cost trillions, enriched organized crime, caused the US to have the highest percentage of its citizens jailed of any nation ever, fostered public paranoia and distrust of the cops, and funded murder on a massive scale worldwide. What it has NOT done is reduced US public consumption of illegal drugs even a little bit. This isn't a racial problem (although the brunt of the punishment has fallen on the black community for whatever reason), it's a matter of basic sanity. We keep doing what doesn't work, over and over and over, in the hopes that NEXT TIME it will work.
1. We could save money by making massive cuts to their hospitality but sommmmeeee people seem to think being in prison still means you have the right to things like cable tv and basketball courts. I'm sure we could tune that $50k down, or whatever the figure is, down but we might make the special snowflakes unhappy in the process. 2. Its also fact, but I have a more realistic take on that subject. Blacks commit more crimes because the pride that comes with being a criminal is a commonly regarded trait in the Black population, that's how I see it. 3. I'm assuming that by referring to Colorado you're talking about recreational marijuana use? As far as I know the only mandatory minimum sentencing for marijuana involves very large quantities ie: trafficking. So I don't think what you're saying is valid. Also the Huff-N-Puff article doesn't mention marijuana which means they know damn well this is about crack, meth, heroine, pcp, and not a few grams of pot. Furthermore if the reasoning behind letting loose these poison pushers is "because we cant afford it" then we should be making cuts to the EPA and the IRS and welfare for that matter. Not setting criminals free.
I don't understand your attitude here. The purpose is to identify 46,000 people who should never have been in jail at all!! and release them. Why are you so determined to keep such people in jail? So you consider it more realistic to WANT to spend time in jail? Maybe your realism could use a dose of, you know, actually talking to some of these people you think take pride in being punished. So you can read the minds of the authors better than I can? Even so, the finding was that these people are nonviolent and not dangerous. And most of the "trafficking" is motivated by the enormous profits drug dealing produces, which in turn is a direct effect of the laws making such drugs illegal in the first place. But of course that isn't the reasoning. The monetary cost, while significant, isn't the motivation here. The motivation is to stop filling more and more jails with people who are harmless. I think you can understand that if something harmless that you do is made illegal, that law has just turned you into a criminal! Sure, you can stop doing it, but it was never criminal behavior in the first place. The goal here, ultimately, is to essentially decriminalize nonviolent and nonthreatening behaviors. While you may consider yourself wildly clever by labeling people "poison pushers", you should at least realize that the American public likes and is willing to pay for their drugs, whether legal or not. Those willing to provide the supply to satisfy the demand aren't "pushing", anymore than Jiffy Lube is "pushing" oil changes. You seem to have this image in your mind of the black community as consisting largely of near-moron congenital criminal types living cushy lives off public assistance while they trick good law-abiding white people into drug addiction. The presumption that they pride themselves on being criminals is stunning. I'll have to ask my neighbor if he's raped any white women lately, in order to feel proud of himself. Better yet, YOU ask him.
Your country is so (*)(*)(*)(*)ed and it is of your own doings. Every empire falls. Soon you'll be just another fallen world power. Pity.
The responses, thus far, certainly shed some light upon precisely how we got ourselves into this dilemma to begin with.
Non-violent offenders are "thugs"? http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/thug It would seem the dictionary disagrees with you.
No, the US is not going to crumble no matter how hard the nipples get. You seem obsessed with (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)ing about the US. Push us to hard and we are going to steal your lunch money and ride your bike home. Care to talk about the topic?
What you don't understand is that these "non-violent drug dealers" deal something that causes people to drain their bank accounts to buy. This makes them unable to pay for their addiction and causes them to commit crimes in order to earn money (1). So, these drug dealers are a menace to society because they create people who commit crimes to foster their addiction. Is it really a harsh sentence to them if they have dealt someything that has killed people? In 2007 3.9% of homicides were drug related (1). Also, in 2004, 60% of drug traffickers were released pretrial. So, whatever "exceedingly harsh sentences" there are for drug traffickers, it must be for only the 40% that get convicted. Also, of the 60% of drug traffickers that were released, 93% were released within the first month (2). Also, of the 1,301, 629 drug abuse arrests made in 2009, whites were the highest arrested race at 845,974 arrests. Blacks were the second highest at 437,623 which is about HALF the amount of white arrests. So, the "young black community" does not have the most drug arrests (3). Finally, I could not find any readable data that states that young blacks receive higher jail sentences than any other race. However, in 2004, whites had more charges in every category except weapons charges. So, the next time you rant and rave about the "poor drug dealers", or the "poor black community" please bother to do some research. 1. http://www.bjs.gov/content/dcf/duc.cfm 2. http://www.bjs.gov/content/dcf/ptrpa.cfm 3. https://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0325.pdf 4. http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fssc04.pdf
1. Sorry but people who get jailed under mandatory minimums sling meth crack and heroin and deserve to be in jail. 2. I'm saying a huge part of their culture idolizes the gangsta thug criminal persona and for that "dose of reality" I cite ...every rap song ever made ever. 3. Huff-N-Puff would like nothing better than to paint these people as victims of the war on pot, as they have done dozens upon dozens of times. They cant because when you talk drugs and mandatory minimum sentencing you're not talking about a little pot. 4. And this is where our conversation ends. You just likened destroying yourself with crack or meth to getting an oil change, so we're finished here. - - - Updated - - - 100% correct.
The whole point of the commission was that these people do NOT deserve to be in jail. But if facts are irrelevant to you, we are indeed done here.
And also why we stay there, and even make things worse. It's been a long time since I've even MET someone who doesn't qualify as a "thug" according to some here.
Pardon all non-violent offenders and be done with it. It is long past time to end this foolish war, which has destroyed millions of lives and fed the increasing militarization of local police forces.
I don't support mandatory sentences generally, but most of these people you think you are going to "rescue" will be back in the system within a year.
