President Obama commuted the sentences of 72 more federal prison inmates Friday, bringing the total number of clemency awards during his tenure to a record 944, including 324 life sentences.
Friday’s round of commutations is the second in the last eight days, and he could announce more in his final two and a half months in the White House.
White House counsel Neil Eggleston credited Obama for “reinvigorating” the presidential clemency authority during his time in office.
Obama has demonstrated that “our nation is a nation of second chances, where mistakes from the past will not deprive deserving individuals the opportunity to rejoin society and contribute to their families and communities,” he wrote in a White House blog Friday.
The president’s 944 commutation recipients have earned “that second chance,” Eggleston wrote, “whether by obtaining a GED, taking vocational programming to learn skills for future employment, or addressing the substance abuse that so often has led to their criminal conduct.”
“These stories demonstrate that neither society nor these individuals benefit from disproportionate sentences that keep rehabilitated individuals incarcerated, even after they have been adequately punished for their wrongdoing,” he wrote.
He then urged Congress to push for broader federal sentencing and criminal justice reforms when it returns in mid-November.
