Biden sets record and commutes sentences of 2,500 non-violent drug offenders in final days as president
President Biden will commute the sentences of roughly 2,500 people convicted of non-violent drug offenses, the White House announced on Friday.
“This action is an important step toward righting historic wrongs, correcting sentencing disparities, and providing deserving individuals the opportunity to return to their families and communities after spending far too much time behind bars,” Biden said in a statement. “I am proud of my record on clemency and will continue to review additional commutations and pardons.”
The announcement, coupled with Biden’s decision last month to commute the sentences of about 1,500 people put on home confinement during the Covid pandemic, means the Democrat has issued the most individual pardons and commutations of any president, according to The Associated Press.
Criminal justice advocates praised the decision.
“Too often, our criminal justice reforms only apply to the law going forward, leaving behind the very people and injustices that moved us to change,” FWD.us executive director, Zoë Towns said in a statement.
Democrats urged Biden last month to take such a step, arguing sentencing disparities between different forms of drugs “caused disproportionate harm to communities of color” and meant thousands of people would be eligible for release if all were treated the same.
Biden has made large-scale pardons and commutations a major part of his criminal justice legacy.
Last month, he also commuted the death sentences of almost everyone on federal death row into life sentences.
More controversially, Biden also pardoned his son Hunter as he was facing sentencing tax and gun charges, despite a previous pledge he wouldn’t do so.
The Biden administration is reportedly mulling preemptive pardons for allies it views as potential targets of undue prosecution from the incoming Trump administration, including former congresswoman Liz Cheney and public health expert Dr. Anthony Fauci.
The pardons and commutations represent a break from Biden’s past in Congress as an author of multiple influential hard-line law enforcement bills in the 1980s and ‘90s, which experts say played a key role in driving mass incarceration.
Biden has since disavowed such bills, including one that created an infamous sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine, which experts say drove the disproportionate sentencing of people of color on drug crimes.
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” Biden later said of the provision, calling it “a profound mistake.”
The executive actions may also be a tool of last resort, as key parts of Biden’s legislative vision on criminal justice never moved forward, including a police reform bill after the murder of George Floyd, and legislation to end the federal death penalty.
