Why President Obama Just Freed 46 Drug Offenders

The president wants to highlight need to make criminal justice system fairer.

ByABC News

July 13, 2015, 3:12 PM

President Barack Obama speaks to the media after receiving an update from military leaders on the campaign against the Islamic State, during a rare visit to the Pentagon, July 6, 2015.
Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo

 -- President Obama granted commutations of sentences for 46 drug offenders Monday, saying “their punishments did not fit the crime.”

“I’m commuting the sentences of 46 prisoners who were convicted many years or, in some cases, decades ago. These men and women were not hardened criminals, but the overwhelming majority had been sentenced to at least 20 years. Fourteen of them had been sentence to life for non-violent drug offenses,” the president said in a video. “Their punishments did not fit the crime and if they were sentenced under today’s laws, nearly all of them would have already served their time.

“America’s a nation of second chances, and I believe these folks deserve their second chance,” he said.

The 46 individuals receiving commutations faced non-violent, drug-related charges, including intent to distribute cocaine. While their sentences have been commuted, the drug convictions themselves will stand. The president wrote a personal letter to each of the individuals whose sentences were commuted today.

“I am granting your application because you have demonstrated the potential to turn your life around,” the president wrote to Jerry Bailey, who was sentenced to 30 years in prison after violating a crack-related narcotics law. “I believe in your ability to prove the doubters wrong, and change your life for the better.”

Over the past six and a half years, the president has issued commutations for nearly 90 individuals, mostly non-violent drug offenders sentenced under rules that are now outdated.

The 46 commutations announced today are part of the president’s push to highlight criminal justice reform this week. The president will further discuss reforming the criminal justice system with a speech at the NAACP convention in Philadelphia on Tuesday. On Thursday, he will visit the El Reno federal prison in Oklahoma -- the first time a president will visit a federal prison.

In his State of the Union address this year, President Obama discussed the need for Democrats and Republicans to work together to “reform America’s criminal justice system so that it protects and serves all of us.”