[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 39 (Monday, March 10, 2014)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E339-E340]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   COMMENDING THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE'S `SMART ON CRIME INITIATIVE'

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. SHEILA JACKSON LEE

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, March 10, 2014

  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, last August, at the direction of the 
Attorney General Eric Holder, the Justice Department launched the 
``Smart on Crime'' initiative, a set of internal policies and reforms 
to ensure federal laws are enforced more fairly and efficiently. These 
reforms are consistent with the President's constitutional obligation 
to take care that the laws are faithfully executed.
  One of the smart reforms is a modification in the department's 
charging policies so that certain low-level, nonviolent drug 
defendants, with no significant ties to large-scale organizations, 
gangs, or cartels, will no longer be charged with offenses triggering 
mandatory minimum sentences. Instead, they will be charged with 
offenses that allow judges to impose sentences appropriate to their 
conduct.
  The ``Smart on Crime'' initiative is an exciting development that 
should be welcomed and supported by everyone because the status quo 
simply was not making the criminal justice system better, it was 
creating more problems than it solved. And we are spending more than 
$6.5 billion annually to incarcerate inmates, money that could be 
better used to fund job training, and educational opportunities, invest 
in infrastructure, support veterans, and promote reentry programs to 
reduce recidivism.
  Thirty years ago, there were less than 30,000 inmates in the federal 
system; today, there are nearly 216,000, an increase of 800 percent. 
The United States incarcerates nearly 25 percent of the world's 
inmates, even though it only has 5 percent of the world's population. 
No other country imprisons a larger percentage of its population than 
the United States or spends anywhere near the amount we do to 
incarcerate our citizens.
  The cost of imprisoning so many non-violent offenders is fiscally 
unsustainable and morally unjustifiable and it will take the combined 
efforts of policy makers, reform advocates, legal professionals, and 
private citizens to solve the problem.
  There is no shortage of stories chronicling the damage done to the 
lives of thousands of individuals and their families by the draconian 
sentencing laws passed by Congress and state legislatures beginning in 
the late 1980s in the so-called ``War on Drugs.'' Few are as tragic as 
the story of Clarence Aaron, who grew up in a public housing project in 
Mobile, Alabama.
  In 1992, shortly after his grandfather's death, Clarence made a 
mistake that would change his life. He agreed to introduce an old high 
school football teammate to a college classmate whose brother was a 
drug dealer. Clarence was present during one of the brother's drug 
transactions and during another attempted transaction for which he 
received $1,500.

[[Page E340]]

  Clarence was later arrested by federal law enforcement officers and 
charged with conspiring to process 20 kilograms of powder cocaine and 
distribute it as crack cocaine. Even though this was his first offense, 
Clarence was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of 
parole. Shocking as this sounds, the judge was powerless to adjust the 
punishment to fit the crime because he was required by law to impose 
the sentence called for by the then-mandatory federal sentencing 
guidelines.
  It would be comforting to think that the case of Clarence Aaron is an 
aberration, a rare miscarriage of justice in a system that otherwise 
works well for all Americans. It would be comforting but it would also 
be wrong.
  The sad fact is that for thousands of inmates in the federal penal 
system, especially African Americans and Hispanics, the case of 
Clarence Aaron is not the exception but the rule. As recently as 2010, 
more than half of all inmates in the federal system (52%) were 
incarcerated for drug offenses, a rate more than three times as great 
(17%) as found in the state penal system.
  And the racial and ethnic composition of federal inmates incarcerated 
for drug offenses is equally troubling story because while whites and 
African Americas use drugs at similar rates, African Americans are much 
more likely to be arrested and sentenced for drug offenses. Indeed, 
African Americans and Hispanics comprise more than 6 in 10 federal 
inmates incarcerated for drug offenses.
  Moreover, according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission African 
American offenders receive sentences that are 10 percent longer than 
white offenders for the same crimes and, according to a report by the 
Sentencing Project, African Americans are 21 percent more likely to 
receive mandatory-minimum sentences than white defendants.
  Many persons concerned about the fair administration of justice were 
alerted to and alarmed by the danger posed by the imposition of 
mandatory-minimum sentences for non-violent drug offenses and worked to 
restore balance and justice to sentencing policy.
  In 2005, I introduced the ``No More Tulias Act of 2005'' (H.R. 2620) 
in response to the infamous drug task force scandal in Tulia, Texas 
that occurred six years earlier, during which 15 percent of the town's 
African American population was arrested, prosecuted and sentenced to 
decades in prison based on the uncorroborated testimony of a federally 
funded undercover officer with a record of racial impropriety.
  This legislation, which was endorsed by more than 50 of the leading 
civil rights, religious, and criminal justice reform organization was 
designed to help put an end to these abuses by enhancing the 
evidentiary standard required to convict a person for a drug offense, 
improving the criteria under which states hire drug task force 
officers, and denying federal money to states that do not have laws 
preventing convictions for drug offenses based solely on uncorroborated 
testimony.

  Later, in 2007, I introduced the ``Drug Sentencing Reform and Cocaine 
Kingpin Trafficking Act of 2007'' (H.R. 4545), bipartisan legislation 
eliminating the unjust and discriminatory 100 to 1 disparity between 
crack and powder cocaine sentences in federal law. Companion 
legislation in the Senate was introduced by then Senator Joseph Biden 
of Delaware (S. 1711).
  This legislation attracted widespread support because scientific 
research had by this time clearly refuted the myth upon which the 100 
to 1 ratio was based that use of crack cocaine was far more addictive 
and dangerous than powder cocaine. Instead, the pharmacological effects 
of crack cocaine were repeatedly shown by scientific and medical 
experts to be no more harmful than powder cocaine and that the effect 
on users is the same. Since there was no pharmacological difference 
between the two drugs, the ``Drug Sentencing Reform and Cocaine Kingpin 
Trafficking Act'' removed the distinction in federal law between them 
for sentencing purposes. Similar bills to remedy the inherent 
unfairness in federal drug sentencing were introduced by Senators 
Edward M. Kennedy and Orrin Hatch, and Jeff Sessions.
  In 2010, after years of working to reform our drug sentencing laws, 
our efforts finally bore fruit when the Congress passed and President 
Obama signed into law the ``Fair Sentencing Act of 2010'' (P.L. 111-
220), which finally ended the 100:1 ratio that had resulted in 
unconscionable racial disparities in the average length of sentences 
for comparable offenses. Indeed, the 100:1 regime was so draconian that 
it typically resulted in African Americans serving as much time in 
prison for non-violent drug offenses as whites did for violent 
offenses. The ``Fair Sentencing Act'' incorporated all of the key 
components of my ``Drug Sentencing Reform and Cocaine Kingpin 
Trafficking Act'' and is a watershed moment in the fight for fair and 
equitable drug sentencing policy.
  But since the provisions of the ``Fair Sentencing Act'' are not 
retroactive there is still much work left to be done. The federal 
prison system still houses thousands of inmates sentenced under the 
old, unfair 100-1 ratio regime. We need to keep working for reform 
until all federal inmates sentenced under the old regime are afforded 
the opportunity to have their sentences reconsidered under the 
provisions of current law.
  Happily, Clarence Aaron will not be one of those who still must wait. 
For after serving more than 20 years in federal prison, Clarence Aaron 
will be freed on April 17 because he was one of eight persons granted 
executive clemency, or a reduction in sentence, by President Obama on 
December 19, 2013. The power to grant a reduction in sentence is among 
the powers vested exclusively to, and committed to the sound discretion 
of, the President by the Pardon Clause (Art. II, Sec. 2, Clause 1) of 
the U.S. Constitution.
  President Obama's grant of executive clemency to Clarence Aaron and 
seven others was an act of simple justice and a welcome development. So 
too is the recent announcement by the Department of Justice that it 
intends to be more aggressive in identifying and recommending to the 
President additional candidates for executive clemency consideration. 
This is not amnesty. These inmates have been incarcerated for many 
years.
  Applications for executive clemency that are most likely to receive 
favorable consideration are those submitted by non-violent, low-level 
drug offenders who were not leaders of, or had any significant ties to, 
large-scale organizations, gangs, or cartels. Petitions from first-time 
offenders and offenders without an extensive criminal history also may 
be good candidates for favorable consideration.
  In light of these recent positive developments, I am optimistic that 
Congress can build upon the progress made to date by passing the 
``Federal Prison Bureau Nonviolent Offender Relief Act,'' (H.R. 62) 
that I have introduced. This legislation directs the Bureau of Prisons 
to release prisoners who have served one half or more of their terms of 
imprisonment if they have (1) attained age 45; (2) never been convicted 
of a crime of violence; and (3) not engaged in any violation involving 
violent conduct of institutional disciplinary regulations.
  The benefits of such a law are two-fold. First, it will give non-
violent offenders who have paid their debt a second chance to redeem 
their lives while they are still young enough to contribute to society. 
Second, it will go a long way toward reducing the $6.5 billion that the 
Nation spends annually on prisoner incarceration.
  Another area in which reform advocates and legal professionals can 
make an immediate difference is in identifying and assisting potential 
candidates for executive clemency and in assembling commutation 
petitions which effectively present the information needed by the 
Department of Justice and the President.
  It is past time for us to get not only our fiscal house in order but 
the penal one as well. Increased exercise of the executive clemency 
power by the President is a step in the right direction.

                          ____________________