Today, President Biden announced that he is granting commutations to nearly 2,500 people serving sentences for nonviolent drug offenses that would be shorter if they were sentenced today. The Brennan Center has advocated for these commutations along with a vast array of partner organizations.
Lauren-Brooke Eisen, senior director of the Brennan Center’s Justice Program, had the following comment:
“We are grateful that President Biden made the historic decision to grant commutations to nearly 2,500 people serving excessive sentences in federal prison for drug offenses. Many of them were serving disproportionately long sentences for crack cocaine compared to sentences for equivalent amounts of powder cocaine, a vestige of the failed war on drugs that has hurt our country, particularly communities of color. We urge Congress to make all drug sentence reductions retroactive moving forward.
“With today’s decision, President Biden has used the clemency power more than any president in history. We thank him for his commitment to ending the inequities in our criminal justice system.”
