Biden commutes sentences of nearly 2,500 nonviolent drug offenders
President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden make their way to the White House after arriving via Marine One on Dec. 19 (Photo by Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
President Joe Biden plans Friday to commute the sentences of nearly 2,500 people convicted of nonviolent drug offenses, making good on a promise to reduce the federal prison population before handing over the White House to President-elect Donald Trump.
The commutations target those serving disproportionately long sentences for drug convictions compared with the punishments they would receive today under sentencing laws, policy and practice, according to the White House.
“It is time that we equalize these sentencing disparities,” Biden said in a statement. “This action is an important step toward righting historic wrongs, correcting sentencing disparities, and providing deserving individuals the opportunity to return to their families and communities after spending far too much time behind bars.”
The statement said Biden’s latest clemency grants mean he has issued more individual pardons and commutations than any other U.S. president.
Friday’s announcement follows Biden’s dramatic step in December to commute the death sentences of 37 federal inmates to life without parole, leaving on federal death row just three men convicted of mass killings motivated by racism or antisemitism.
The outgoing president had faced criticism for not moving more quickly to give clemency to other people behind bars, particularly after he granted a sweeping pardon to his son, Hunter Biden, on Dec. 1. Eleven days later, the president announced almost 1,500 commutations that benefited those who had already been released from prison into home confinement.
According to the White House, the latest commutations provide relief for individuals who received lengthy sentences based on discredited distinctions between crack and powder cocaine, as well as outdated sentencing enhancements for drug crimes - some embraced when Biden was a senator - that Congress has since addressed through bipartisan legislation.
Presidents, who have broad authority to grant clemency as a tool to show mercy and address injustices, have traditionally reserved the bulk of those actions for their final year in the White House. Commutations cut short federal prison terms, and pardons help former defendants obtain employment and regain civil rights, such as voting and gun ownership.
It was not immediately clear how many of the nearly 2,500 people included in Biden’s announcement Friday will be released from prison as a result of his clemency action.
Every president since Gerald Ford has issued pardons or commutations in their last days in office, according to the Pew Research Center.
President Barack Obama issued 1,700 commutations, cutting long sentences served by nonviolent drug offenders. Trump used his power to help campaign donors, political allies and celebrities - many of whom went on to help him win a second term.
Biden campaigned in 2020 to reduce the prison population and do away with the federal death penalty. But by the end of 2023, he had issued only 138 grants of clemency.
Clemency advocates and Democrats in Congress pressed Biden for months to consider commutations for drug offenders serving long sentences that were reduced by the First Step Act, a bipartisan law signed by Trump in 2018. In a letter to the White House in October, Senate Democrats, including Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin of Illinois, also pointed to crack cocaine offenders who received much harsher sentences than powder cocaine offenders.
As of late December, there were almost 9,400 clemency petitions in the pipeline, according to the Justice Department’s website. The applications are rigorously vetted by the agency’s pardon office, which makes recommendations for action by the White House. Last year, the pardon office sought to shrink the perpetual backlog with a more user-friendly clemency application and additional staffing and resources.
Most of the 1,499 people affected by Biden’s “categorical commutation” in December had not submitted applications, however. They were part of a broad-based approach to grant relief to people serving the rest of their sentences at home under the Cares Act, a 2020 law passed during the coronavirus pandemic intended to protect vulnerable inmates deemed not to be a risk to public safety.
Beth Reinhardt and Matt Viser contributed to this report.
