More than 1,200 prisoners will be released into the Washington area if new sentencing guidelines for crack cocaine offenses are made retroactive, a proposal just pitched by the Justice Department. President Obama signed a law in August reducing the sentences for crack offenses, saying it remedied a “fundamentally unfair” disparity in which crack cocaine offenders received harsher penalties than other cocaine offenders.
On Wednesday, Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. urged the U.S. Sentencing Commission to make the law applicable to federal prisoners sentenced under the old guidelines. The change could mean the early release of more than 12,000 prisoners nationwide, shaving three years off the average sentence.
| Back on the streets? |
| Prisoners potentially eligible for early release: |
| Virginia (Eastern) — 884 |
| Maryland — 209 |
| D.C. — 139 |
| Capital region — 1,232 |
| United States — 12,040 |
| Source: U.S. Sentencing Commission |
“There is simply no just or logical reason why their punishments should be dramatically more severe than those of other cocaine offenders,” Holder testified.
Holder, the country’s top law enforcement official, said the issue was “deeply personal” and recalled his time as a D.C. judge and the city’s former U.S. attorney, when the crack cocaine epidemic decimated the District’s neighborhoods.
“Our drug laws were not perceived as fair, and our law enforcement efforts suffered as a result,” Holder said.
David Hiller, national vice president of the Fraternal Order of Police, disagreed with the Justice Department’s assessment. The offenders facing early release, he said, are not “low-level dealers” or first-time offenders.
“Early release of these criminals would serve only to further the destruction of our communities from cocaine,” Hiller said.
Releasing thousands of criminals at a time when many law enforcement agencies are cutting officers will create a dangerous situation, he said.
Northern Virginia would likely be affected more than any other area in the country. Nearly 900 prisoners in the Eastern District of Virginia would be eligible to get out early, more than twice as many as any other area in the country.
Michael Nachmanoff, the district’s public defender, said the retroactive changes would alleviate overcrowding and save U.S. taxpayers more than $1 billion.
The crack cocaine penalties disproportionately affect black people. In 2009, 93 percent of the defendants sentenced for crack offenses in his district were black, Nachmanoff said.
The commission is expected to rule within the next few months. Congress could still reject or modify the guidelines.
Ron Moten, head of the conflict resolution organization Peaceaholics, said he did four years of federal time for having about 25 grams of crack cocaine. Three more grams (to equal an ounce), and he’d have been sentenced to 10 years — about the same punishment that someone caught with 22 pounds of powder cocaine would face, he said.
“I’m not saying I shouldn’t have been punished,” he said, “but the sentences should be fair.”
