After more relaxed guidelines for federal sentencing for future crack cocaine offenders were put in place last spring, an independent panel is today considering whether to retroactively reduce the sentences of federal inmates in prison for crack-related offenses. The Washington Post reports that should the panel do so, the sentences of nearly 20,000 inmates would be reduced by an average of 27 months. Notably, nearly 86 percent of the inmates who would be affected by the reduction are black. “Making the amendment retroactive will … help repair the image of the sentencing guidelines in communities of color,” University of Virginia professor and NAACP Chairman Julian Bond wrote to the panel. “It is cruel and arbitrary to fix this injustice for some, but not for others, solely because of the date they were sentenced.”
 Julian Bond supports reducing the sentences for crack related offenses. |
