President Obama announced that he was “commuting the sentences of 46 federal drug offenders, more than doubling the number of nonviolent criminals to whom he has granted clemency since taking office,” the New York Times reports.
Said Obama in a letter to each prisoner: “I believe in your ability to prove the doubters wrong, and change your life for the better. So good luck, and Godspeed.”
“The commutations are part of a second-term push by Mr. Obama to use clemency to correct what he sees as the excesses of the past, when politicians eager to be tough on crime threw away the key even for minor criminals. As a result, African-American and Hispanic men were disproportionately affected.”
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