(This is a developing story and will be updated.)
President Joe Biden on Friday commuted the sentences of almost 2,500 nonviolent drug offenders locked up in federal prisons.
The White House issued a short statement that did not identify any individuals nor specify which drug charges led to their incarceration.
“Today’s clemency action provides relief for individuals who received lengthy sentences based on discredited distinctions between crack and powder cocaine, as well as outdated sentencing enhancements for drug crimes,” Biden said in his statement.
The marijuana industry has been a vocal critic of the Biden administration for not commuting the sentences of prisoners in jail for nonviolent marijuana offenses.
Biden said in the statement that the commutations were targeted toward people “serving disproportionately long sentences compared to the sentences they would receive today under current law, policy, and practice.”
The outgoing president’s action comes after his December commutation of sentences for 37 death row inmates, 39 nonviolent prisoners, and some 1,500 prisoners who were transferred from prisoners to home confinement during COVID-19.
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