US President Joe Biden will announce his administration’s first pardons on Tuesday, part of a series of moves to bolster his record on crime and racial justice in an election year.
The Democrat will pardon three people and reduce sentences for 75 others, most of whom have been convicted of nonviolent drug crimes. Government officials are also expected to announce new policies, including a $145 million training program, to help former detainees reintegrate into society and thus lessen the chance that they will re-commit. violations.
The measures, however, fall short of demands by activists for reforms to the US justice system, who are calling for a broad reduction in sentences for nonviolent drug-related misdemeanors and the release of more people who have already been convicted.
The US has less than 5% of the world’s inhabitants, but a fifth of its inmates, even though the US prison population has shrunk in recent years to reduce the risk of Covid-19.
The issue has special weight ahead of the midterm elections in November, when the Democratic Party’s narrow majority in the House and Senate will be at stake. Democrats need support from black voters, who are disproportionately targeted for arrests. The expectation is that the increase in urban crimes will be a matter of the lawsuit, as well as unemployment in times of high inflation.
“America is a nation of laws and second chances, redemption and rehabilitation,” Biden said in a statement released Tuesday. “Helping those who have served time to return to their family and become a contributing member of their community is one of the most effective ways to reduce recidivism and crime.”
Betty Jo Bogans, 51, will be pardoned after serving seven years in prison over a 1998 conviction for possessing cocaine for her boyfriend, according to the White House. Dexter Jackson, 52, will also be pardoned after being convicted in 2002 of letting marijuana dealers use his pool hall.
On average, the other people who will have their sentences reduced have already spent nearly 10 years in prison and have shown commitment to the rehabilitation process, according to the White House.
Abraham Bolden, 86, the first black member of a US president’s Secret Service during the John F. Kennedy administration, is also among those pardoned by Biden.
He raised concerns about the readiness of the security force before facing accusations in the 1960s of trying to sell government information to a forger. Bolden went on to say he was innocent, and key witnesses in his trial admitted to lying at the prosecutor’s request, according to the White House.
