Inmates Released From Federal Prisons

The justice department has released roughly 6,000 inmates from federal prisons as a part of an effort to ease overcrowding and reduce harsh penalties given to many nonviolent drug dealers in the 1980’s and 1990’s.  About a third of the inmates that are being released are undocumented immigrants who will be deported after their release.  Many of them were convicted of significant legal offenses and because of this, President Obama is unlikely to be criticized as harshly for their release by people who have objected to deportations like these in the past.  This is one of the largest discharges of inmates from federal prisons in the history of the United States.  This coincides with the effort to ease the mass incarcerations that followed decades of strict sentencing for drug offenses, like dealing crack cocaine, which took a particularly rough toll on minority communities.  Many believe that far too many people have lost an excessive amount of the years of their life to unfair sentencing laws that were put into motion after the failed war on drugs.  Minority communities have had to face the brutality of these laws.  

The government will watch these released inmates closely, at least the ones that will be allowed to stay in the country, and will soon discover if their decision to allow this mass discharge of inmates ends on a positive note.  

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