Joe Biden made history by giving “more individual pardons and commutations” than any other U.S. president. As confirmed in a Friday (Jan. 17) White House press release, he granted clemency for nearly 2,500 nonviolent drug offenders three days before the end of his term. The president expressed that this action targeted individuals “serving disproportionately long sentences compared to the sentences they would receive today under current law, policy and practice.”
Biden continued, “Today’s clemency action provides 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who received lengthy sentences based on discredited distinctions between crack and powder cocaine, as well as outdated sentencing enhancements for drug crimes.” Specifics regarding the exact number of people impacted, the timelines involved or the criteria used to determine eligibility were left unclear.
As ABC News revealed, Biden supported tough-on-crime measures in the 1980s. Among the legislation he backed was a law imposing harsher penalties for crack cocaine offenses — primarily impacting African American communities — compared to powder cocaine cases, which predominantly involved white individuals.
Over the past decade, measures like the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 and the First Step Act of 2018 worked to address these issues. In 2021, Biden’s administration added to this by supporting the EQUAL Act. According to The Washington Post, the outgoing head of state disavowed the earlier provision, saying “the road to hell is paved with good intentions,” before calling the initial disparity in sentencing “a profound mistake.”
“This action is an important step toward righting historic wrongs,” he stated in his Friday announcement, before adding that he’s “correcting sentencing disparities and providing deserving individuals the opportunity to return to their families and communities after spending far too much time behind bars.”
Even with only a weekend between Biden and the end of his term, he appeared to hint at further use of his executive powers. “I am proud of my record on clemency and will continue to review additional commutations and pardons,” he closed.