Thousands of Prisoners Will Start Fresh with Early Release - Emily Rosuck 4th period

Obama has recently vehemently made it his priority to see that thousands of prisoners doing time for drug charges get early release and to soften drug laws. Over the next few years, as a result of an "across-the-board-adjustment" of federal drug penalties by the United States Sentencing Commission, tens of thousands more inmates may benefit from reductions in their terms, and new sentences will be somewhat shorter than they were in recent decades. From Friday to Monday, over 6,000 federal prisoners are going to be released earlier than expected. While nearly one-third of them are foreign and will be handed over to immigration and will likely be deported, this is a symbol of hope for those incarcerated under drug sentences. 
This mass-pardon of inmates is a result of growing concerns of overcrowding in prisons and therefore the amount of tax dollars being put into it, and a shared idea among both political parties that the justice system's way of handling the "war on drugs" has often been too extreme. Average time for a drug offense is 10.5 years, this will be reduced to 8.5 years. While that may not seem like a huge difference, for the convict, that 730 fewer days in jail. While  it doesn't get rid of  the harsh mandatory minimum sentences and reduce the felony prosecution of lower-level drug offenders, it is a reform that is being celebrated by justice reform activists. 
This is kind of like how after the President ends his term in office, he gets to pardon prisoners and wipe their slate clean, but on a much larger scale, and their slate is definitely not wiped clean. Many of them will have to stay in a halfway house or house arrest and almost all of them will be on probation for years. 
It's really spectacular that our politicians are finally starting to address this issue, not only because there have been so many extreme charges on mild things like marijuana possession, whereas most rapists walk away free, but also because the justice system, or lack thereof, puts a massive strain on the rest of the country. The taxpayers are paying billions, 39 billion, to be exact, to pay for all things prison, from capital costs to health care for prisoners to salary and benefits for prison officers and employees. This reform isn't exactly going to fix this system, but it should definitely help out the tax payers and obviously the wrongly-incarcerated. It's a small but vital step in the right direction.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/02/us/with-early-release-thousands-of-inmates-are-adjusting-to-freedom.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0