Great news. Thanks for sharing.
Hundreds? Out of what, maybe a million incarcerated non-violent offenders??
No there are about 210,000 federal prisoners. On the other hand there are about 1,300,000 state prisoners and 750,000 in city and county jails.
Obama can only pardon people in federal prisons.
You can’t expect the president to pardon a million people. It looks like he’s focusing on people who were egregiously screwed by mandatory sentencing laws.
Wow. Is Obama finally going to do something I can approve?
Kayaker raises bong heavenward, “Let my people go!!!”
As good as this looks on paper, I question the wisdom of releasing several thousand drug addicts onto the streets after they’ve been imprisoned for years, and presumably “institutionalized” in the Shawshank Redemption sense. The P.R. could backfire in a major way if just ONE of those released prisoners commits some violent atrocity, and ends up becoming a poster child for those dastardly Republicans in the next election cycle – anyone remember Willie Horton?
That being said, I’m definitely in favor of leniency for non-violent drug offenders, esp. replacing jail time with therapy. I’d even support a Constitutional Amendment to that effect, if that’s what it would take to force those pesky red states to fall in line.
Not sure the Dem candidates in the mid-terms are going to be pleased with this move. It’s handing ammunition to the other side…
I disagree. I think letting people out of prison has bipartisan appeal. Naturally, some won’t like it, but I doubt it would be those who would consider voting Democratic anyway.
I don’t know how the numbers break down, but this has slowly become a less controversial issue. Republicans who like Rand Paul will like this.
So, because a few out of thousands of these people just MIGHT commit a crime we should keep them all locked up for the rest of their lives?
What are YOU smokin’?
Good to hear some progress from the allegedly progressive Obama.
You can still be pissed he didn’t start this project on Day One of his first term; I know I am.
Who says they’re drug addicts? The mandatory minimum sentencing laws put a bunch of people in prison for years on conspiracy charges for such horrors as answering a phone for someone who sold drugs.
I would like to see non violent offenders out of jail so that there would be room for the like of Darrell Dennis, who was on parole instead of serving some forty years of jail time.
Apparently, Eric Holder did a poor job of explaining what is actually happening. Yes, that’s a FOX News article. Read it anyway. Makes a lot of sense.
You must be one of the extremely small subset of Americans who didn’t want bin Laden dead, then, right? :dubious:
Holy shit; that was actually a good article. Thanks for bringing it to our attention, Oakminster.
While the author’s basic point is well-taken, she misunderstood Holder’s use of the word “regime” and also misunderstood McCarthy when she said he was wrong to say that pardon power was legislative. Holder didn’t mean what she thought he meant and McCarthy didn’t say what she thought he said.