Statement: Dream.Org Celebrates President Biden’s Historic Clemency of 2,500 People and Urges the Senate to Pass the EQUAL Act
Today during his final moments in office, President Biden commuted nearly 2,500 sentences for Americans with nonviolent crack cocaine offenses, making a new record for the largest single-day act of clemency in modern American history.
Four years ago, we began work on the EQUAL Act to end the notorious, and discriminatory “crack/powder” disparity that sent tens of thousands of people to long federal prison sentences during the height of the War on Drugs. Recognizing the legislation could not pass last year, we began urging the Biden Administration to consider clemency for people serving these unjust sentences. Now a significant number of those people will be reunited with their families.
In response to this historic moment, Dream.Org Chief Advocacy Officer Janos Marton issued the following statement:
“This is a day to celebrate for 2,500 people who will be reunited with their families, and a much-needed correction to a historic injustice from the War on Drugs. Today’s win is also a testament to what can happen when advocates work together, from the people involved in the 2010 Fair Sentencing Act and 2018 First Step Act, the bipartisan coalition that nearly passed the EQUAL Act, the many groups that championed this clemency effort, the Department of Justice, and especially directly impacted families. We made this moment happen.
While we celebrate this today, the work does not stop here. We will continue to work on the EQUAL Act in the next Congress to bring home the approximately 8,000 people who did not benefit from today’s clemency, as well as other justice reform policies that make our system safer and fairer.”
ABOUT DREAM.ORG
At Dream.Org, we dream of a world beyond mass incarceration. We build communities with fewer prisons, safer neighborhoods, and transformed lives. We bring people together across racial, social, and partisan lines to create a future with freedom, dignity and opportunity for all.
