President Biden commuted the sentences of individuals facing federal execution to life sentences, highlighting the issue of mass incarceration and the disproportionate impact on communities of color.
President Joe Biden delivered remarks from the Roosevelt Room of the White House on December 8, 2024, in Washington, D.C. Joe Biden has set a record-breaking number of clemencies and commutations into motion as his presidency comes to an end. On December 12, Biden commuted the sentences of facing federal execution to life sentences. With this action, the outgoing president took important steps to address the harm of capital punishment. 'one in seven people in U.S.
prisons is serving a life sentence, either life without parole, life with parole or virtual life (50 years or more), totaling 203,865 people' as of 2021. This is the highest number of people in history — a 66 percent increase since 2003, the first time the census was taken. Many of these people facing 'death by incarceration' were sentenced under guidelines that are no longer used. In 1984, the United States Sentencing Commission released uniform guidelines that created statutory mandatory minimum sentences. At the time, Biden supported the creation of these guidelines as a senator representing Delaware. In the decades since, these guidelines have devastated countless families by tearing them apart. (45 percent) of adults in the U.S. ― 113 million people nationwide ― have an immediate family member who has spent at least one night in jail or prison, These excessive sentences set the precedent for the war on drugs and mass incarceration, which devastated Black and Brown communities and caused long-lasting harm through multiple generations. Efforts were made to address the harm by making changes to the sentencing guidelines, however, mandatory sentences were not changed. The Sentencing Project data shows, 'More than two-thirds of those serving life sentences are people of color; with one in five Black men in prison serving a life sentence; and Latinx individuals comprising 16% of those serving life sentences.' I am a survivor of this mass incarceratio
CLEMENCY COMMUTATION LIFE SENTENCE MASS INCARCERATION RACE
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