A strange-bedfellows alliance of Republicans and Democrats led by President Obama is pushing to reform federal laws that have packed prisons with legions of aging🅠, nonviolent drug dealers.
Mandatory minimum sentencing laws and guidelines, along with so-called “three strikes, you’reꦕ out” statutes, have helped fill US prisons with drug offenders.
But warehousiཧng them costs the government big money — up to a million dollars each in the case o🐻f teens locked up for life.
They are the 𒊎legislative legacy of the crack epidemic that raged in the ‘80s and ‘90s — federal sentenci🍨ng statutes meant to clear the streets of rampant crime.
Proponents of reform include lawmakers from both parties, and even staunchly conservative billionaires Charles 🉐and David Koch.
This week, Obama is expected to call for a compr👍ehensive fede🃏ral sentencing package that includes reduced sentences and greater judicial sentencing discretion for nonviolent drug offenders.
He🐷 will🌺 likely make his pitch Tuesday, when he addresses the NAACP conference in Philadelphia.
On Thursday, ൲he will become the first sitting president to vi🥃sit a prison.
Obama will meet with prison officials and inmates inside the federal penitentiary in El Reno, Oklahoma, to “underscore the administration’s focus on the need to reform and improve America’s criminal justice system,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Frid♏ay.
And as early as Monday, th𝓡e president may announce his latest round of clemencies of nonviolent offenders.
In March, he shortened the sentences of nearlyജ two❀ dozen drug inmates, including eight who were doing life.
With prisons overcrowded by almost 40 percent, and more people behind bars — 2.3 million —꧂ than 🦩in any other country in the world, sentencing reform simply makes good fiscal and humanitarian sense, said Mike Riggs of Families Against Mandatory Minimums.
“The Bureau of Prisons is spending 25 percent of the DOJ budget — much of it on nonviolent drug offenders,” Riggs said. “Do we really need to do that, when we’re trying to fight cyberteཧrrorism and ISIS?”
Sentencing reform would benefit New York state, said veteran defense lawyer Geo♕rge Goltzer.
“We deal with these guidelines every day, and the cataloဣg of human tragedy is amazing,” he said. “These are not major drug dealers; these are not the leaders of a cartel.”
Here are four people who really need prison reform:
Shirley Schmitt, 57, Iowa
Serving 10 years for methamphetamine conspiracy.
Schmitt never even sold the meth she m🌠ade. But in 2013, at 55 years old, she was thrown in jail for a decade, the mandatory minimum triggered by having more than 50 grams of crystal meth on her small horse farm.
She had become addicted to the drug while dealing with chronic pain and depression after her husband died of a heart attack inꦦ 2006.
“I needed the help to get out of bed,” she told Families Ag💫ainst Mandatory Minimums.
She and ✨eight pals were caught cooking meth on her farm for personal use.
“Nobody had any big c♕ars or stacks of twenties,” noted her sentencing judge, whose hands were tied by statute.
Sherman Chester, 48, Florida
Serving li💮fe without parole for cocaine conspiracy.
Chester was tripped up by the 💧federal “three strikes” rule — which mandates that a third 🅘drug felony gets you life in prison, even though his first two were for smaller, personal possessions.
A recreational cocaine user, he was netted during a large drug sting in 1992 while doing ꧒street sales and money deliveries for a family friend, whom he described as an “un🅰cle figure.”
Chester was held accountable f🐻or the entire conspiracy.
“This man doesn’t deserve a life sentence, and there i🧜s no way that I can legally keep from giving it to him,” Chester’s judge said in sentencing the then-27-year-old.
Ronald Evans, 41, Virginia
Serving life wi💮thout parole for cocai💃ne conspiracy.
Evans was just 16 years old when he joined a crack conspiracy — and had just turned 18 when he was locked up for life despite 🥃his midlevel role in the gang and even though he had no history of violence.
He is one of 8,000 federal pris🅠oners who were sentenced under draconian drug laws meant to fig🥃ht the crack epidemic of the ’80s and ’90s.
Under those laws — reformed in 2010 — “you needed 100 times more♏ powder than crack to get the same mandatory minimum,” said Mike Riggs of Families Against Mandatory Minimums.
There’s still more reform to be done.
“Now, it’s 17 to 1,” Riggs said.
Barbra Scrivner, 49, California
Sentenced to 30 ye💛ars for meth consp🍸iracy; freed by Obama in January
Scrivner started smoking pot when she was 7 years old. It was given to her by her mom’s boyfriend, who also let his pals sexually molest h💟er.
As she started high school, she began using meth, given to her by a drug-addict b𒉰oyfriend.
She stayed clean for the b♋irth of her daughter but was hooked again in 1994 at age 27 and with the girl age 2.
Although she didn’t deal drugs, she got sentenced to a mandatory minimum of 30 years for conspiracy after refusing to testify against her boyfriend and his friends, who were cooking me♑th in their apartment.