Thank God someone finally addressed this. Since Len Bias, the basketball phenom who died the night after going #1 overall in the NBA draft to the celtics of a cocaine overdose, there has been a ridiculous law demanding a minimum sentence of 5 years for ANY possession of crack...That's right, ANY. That means if you have a trace of it, you get the same sentence as someone who has 100 times that much. Well finally, the government has voted to retroactively reduce sentences for lesser offenders, allowing the eventual release of many small-time offenders.
On top of the extreme sentences, the law was controversial and labeled racist as it singled out crack, a drug in which 84% of convicted possessors were african american , and left out cocaine, which only 30% of convicted possessors were african american.
The new vote is limited to federally prosecuted prisoners, leaving many state convicted perps unhelped, and only applies to those convicted after 2007 since a previous reduction law was passed in that year and has already been applied to thousands of prisoners.
It's not perfect...many people will still stay in prison far longer than they should, but at least it's a start.
http://openchannel.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/01/8566165-no-crackheads-arent-coming-to-get-you
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