What could the administration actually do? What Holder and the Obama administration will NOT discover is a way to reduce the budget of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which grew 4 percent in this year of budgetary austerity. They won’t find a way to NOT open that new federal supermax prison in Illinois, or a way to close existing torture facility like the one in Florence, Colo. They aren’t looking for ways to use federal law enforcement and corrections funding to pressure states to close their supermaxes, or encourage them to provide educational opportunities and decent medical care to the 2 million plus in state and local prisons and jails. These are practical measures Holder and his boss have had the power to do for 55 months now, and haven’t done, haven’t even discussed. After the 2010 passage of the Fair Sentencing Act, and court decisions which say its provisions ought to be retroactive back to the 1980s, President Obama could have, as Margaret Kimberley pointed out weeks ago, simply commuted the sentences of the 5,000, 10,000 or 12,000, depending on the degree of retroactivity applied, who have already served excess prison time under the old and outlawed 100 to 1 crack vs powder cocaine penalties.
Posted on: Sat, 24 Aug 2013 22:58:08 +0000
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