Obama to pardon dozens of non-violent drug offenders, NY Times reports

President Barack Obama in 2013. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File) (Carolyn Kaster)

President Barack Obama plans to pardon dozens of non-violent drug offenders in coming weeks, likely commuting more sentences in one action than any president in almost 50 years, The New York Times reports.

Obama's administration has issued a call for clemency applications, as part of his attempt to undo political excesses of the past, in which people convicted of minor drug crimes were locked up for many years, according to the report. Some 30,000 people applied for clemency, but only a but more than 80 likely will be set free.

Democrats and Republicans are on board with reducing punishment for such offenders. This, as the U.S. Sentencing Commission has revised guidelines for drug offenders, reducing sentences for more than 9,500 inmates, the New York Times reported. Nearly three-quarters of those inmates are black of Hispanic.

Read The New York Times report.

http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2015/07/obama_to_pardon_dozens_of_non-.html