“6,000 non-violent federal drug offenders are being release”
Here’s what you don’t know…
By Demond A. Jackson
There’s allot of media attention with regards to the 6,000 drug offenders who have had their sentences lowered, do to the retroactive application of 2 point reduction, for all drug under the federal Sentencing Guidelines. The current focus coming from conservative analyst on the legal forefront is the lack of re-entry programs, jobs, housing, as well as the potential for these individuals to recidivate and raise the crime rate. Yet they’re completing disregarding the purpose and reason behind these early release.
Here’s what you don’t know:
1. Majority of the offenders who got released early, were less than 51 months from release anyway, 2. 1,700 were illegal immigrants who’s been turn over to ICE for deportation, 3. The reason the law was changed was because of a study the sentencing commission did that revealed that the sentencing laws prior to their amendment where racially disparate and “Unconstitutional.” That being said, the early release of these men and women is about correcting errors and injustices to these individuals sentences. The side effect of justice is: the hurdles them or our society might face in the process.
Here’s what you’re not hearing:
This isn’t the first time this great nation has had to correct its unjust laws, laws that effect a class and a mass of people. For example: The Emancipation Proclamation Act , it was a congressional law that overturned a unconstitutional law i.e., slavery. The EPA effected millions (not a mere 6,000), and at that time conservative and right wingers had the same concerns, they have now… “The release of all these slaves are going to raise crime., There’s no place to put them, They are no prepared to be free.” Yet this nation found a way to process through million of un-free men and women dealing with the obstacles of being free in a society that wasn’t prepared to embrace them.
It’s sad when this nation found out that the laws they created where causing men and women to be locked up at rampant rate “20-to-30,000 year” , they didn’t hesitate to find a solution to the problem i.e., “Build more prisons…” Federal prison where popping up like Mc Donald’s all across the nation. Yet its a question of what to we should do to help less than 6,000? They could build housing complexes for all of these men a women and it would be cheaper than what it cost to house them in a federal prison. Can’t these intellectual giants who run this country see this, can’t they express to society that at some point we have to deal with the wrong and right of our past decisions and what comes along with them no matter how difficult it maybe. History has taught the best means to dealing with these situation the do’s and the don’ts.
One has to remember that ever free slave was promised 40 acres and a mule, but every state didn’t honor that rule. I’m sure out of the million slave who became free some became criminals, some became homeless and some return to the plantations that had taught them all they knew at the time and likewise that will be the case for some of these inmates who are being release after serving two or three decades behind bars… for some prison and criminality is all they know. Yet when its all said and done the freeing of slave was the right thing to do, its was in line with the constitution of this great nation and this applies equally to the justice reform we are starting to see at the federal level.
Great men and women came from the freeing of slaves men and women who help shape and mold this nation into what it is today. Great men and women will be released from prison do to the reform that is taking place, men and women who will help shape this nation for the better. The negative perspectives to these changes that are being sheppard by conservative analysts, should never be a reason to hinder correct injustice. Change by inform has its pro’s and con’s, but changes that are for the betterment of our society is worth any and all obstacles that they may present.
Simply put, imagine if the abolishment of slavery wasn’t retroactive, imagine if there weren’t men and women who supported the freeing of slave, imagine if this country had never honor it’s constitution. If these things never existed, you and I would never have seen the first black president of the United States of American, there would be no such thing as Hip Hop and the term African American would never came to fruition. Therefore understand how important it is that you support Justice Reform, that you let your voices be heard and no human being should allow justice to be hindered by the challenges that manifest from it. This is what you’re not hearing….