Obama shortens prison sentences for 61 drug offenders

Announcement comes day after the president criticized the war on drugs:
‘For too long we’ve viewed drug addiction through the lens of criminal justice’

Amanda Holpuch in New York
Wednesday 30 March 2016 19.43 BST

Barack Obama on Wednesday commuted the sentences of 61 federal prisoners, all of whom were being held on drug charges.

This announcement came one day after the president criticised the previous American policy of engaging in a “war on drugs”, telling a conference on the opiate epidemic: “For too long we’ve viewed drug addiction through the lens of criminal justice.”

Those who received reduced prison terms on Wednesday were primarily charged with distribution of drugs and had been sentenced when the government was most aggressively prosecuting people with drug charges, a tactic that disproportionately punished men of color.

Jesse Webster, of Chicago, was among those whose life imprisonment was commuted on Wednesday. He was sentenced on 21 March 1996 for cocaine charges and filing two false income tax returns.

[font size=1]-snip-[/font]