Law Enforcement Warns
of Dire Consequences That Will Follow the First Wave of Obama Administration’s
Mass Prison Release
Oct. 30, 2015 12:10pm Fred
Lucas
Law
enforcement officials are very concerned about the 6,000 federal inmates set to
be released Friday—the first wave in a larger plan that will
ultimately free 46,000 convicts.
The sentencing
reductions were decided by the U.S. Sentencing Commissionin 2014, but the commission’s decision
came amid a political push to reduce the prison population.
"For
the far-right, it’s about dollar signs; for the far-left, it’s the view that
incarceration is unjust,” Don Mihalek, legislative director for Federal Law
Enforcement Officers Association, told The Blaze.
The first wave of releases comes as
President Barack Obama—backed by a bipartisan coalition in
Congress— is pushing for major criminal justice reform. The Senate
Judiciary Committee recently sent a bill to the full Senate to scale back
mandatory minimums.
The
U.S. Sentencing Commission voted last year to reduce the sentencing guidelines
levels for federal drug-trafficking offenders retroactively. The commission
also cited reports that the Federal Bureau of Prisons population exceeds
capacity by around 32 percent.
"The
Sentencing Commission approved these reductions with a broad brush by studying
policy papers and not looking at any individual cases,” Mihalek told TheBlaze.
"We are just transferring a federal problem. This is just going to be a problem
for state and local law enforcement. This is a dangerous path with dangerous
people during a documented crime wave.”
According
to the commission, 46,290 offenders will be eligible to have their sentences
reduced, with potential average reductions of 25 months, or 18.8 percent.
Proponents
of the reduced sentences contend this is a matter of letting non-violent
offenders be released from long prison sentences.
This
isn’t the first sentence-reduction decision by the U.S. Sentencing
Commission.In 2007, the commission allowed 16,511 convicted crack dealers
to have reduced sentences. And in 2010, Congress reduced penalties for
trafficking crack cocaine. The Sentencing Commission followed by reducing
sentences for another 7,748.
"Really,
is there anybody out there who thinks drug trafficking is non-violent? That’s
silly talk,” Steve Cook, president of the National Association of Assistant
U.S. Attorneys, told TheBlaze. "Drugs wreak havoc on society, and we are in an
opioid and heroin crisis now.”
Cook,
an assistant U.S. attorney in Tennessee, said there are a number of myths
propping up the argument in favor of releases, adding that mandatory minimums
have driven down the crime rate and served as a deterrent, which has kept the
prison population low over the long term.
Cook
believes the most ridiculous myth is that drug users – rather than traffickers
– are getting long prison sentences.
"I
have no idea how anybody has been able to successfully spin that myth,” Cook
said. "Look at the federal sentencing statistics, and you’ll see that less than
1 percent are in prison for drug possession.”
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/10/30/law-enforcement-warns-of-dire-consequences-that-will-follow-the-first-wave-of-obama-administrations-mass-prison-release/