Yesterday, President Obama commuted the sentences of eight people serving tragically harsh prison terms due to old federal guidelines that treated crack cocaine as if it were 100 times worse than the powdered stuff. The Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 cut penalties for crack cocaine offenses, but it was not retroactive. Now, for these eight human beings, each of whom has been locked away for at least 15 years, the long nightmare is finally coming to an end.
There are few things worse than having such a large chunk of your life stolen from you—other than having an even larger chunk stolen, which is what these people were facing. And for what? Not for robbing or assaulting or killing anyone, but for non-violent drug offenses. Which is to say, for consuming, producing, buying, or selling substances that government officials decided we cannot consume, produce, buy, or sell. No, you're too stupid and immature to make up your own mind about this, and we, your leaders and protectors, are all-knowing and wise. Off to jail with you!
Obama issued a statement saying, "If they had been sentenced under the current law, many of them would have already served their time and paid their debt to society." I'm sorry, what debt is that? To whom is it owed, exactly? On the contrary, those responsible for stealing years of freedom from other human beings for engaging in voluntary acts are the ones who have an unfathomably large debt to pay.
Eight lives have been improved by this act of clemency. It's a start. But there are thousands more serving ridiculously harsh sentences because we all lost our minds about crack cocaine in the 1980s. And there are hundreds of thousands more serving some kind of sentence for non-violent drug offenses in federal and state prisons in the US. They should all receive complete pardons and somehow be compensated for the grave injustice they have endured at the hands of the very people charged to prevent injustice.
Obama issued a statement saying, "If they had been sentenced under the current law, many of them would have already served their time and paid their debt to society." I'm sorry, what debt is that? To whom is it owed, exactly? On the contrary, those responsible for stealing years of freedom from other human beings for engaging in voluntary acts are the ones who have an unfathomably large debt to pay.
Eight lives have been improved by this act of clemency. It's a start. But there are thousands more serving ridiculously harsh sentences because we all lost our minds about crack cocaine in the 1980s. And there are hundreds of thousands more serving some kind of sentence for non-violent drug offenses in federal and state prisons in the US. They should all receive complete pardons and somehow be compensated for the grave injustice they have endured at the hands of the very people charged to prevent injustice.