US prison activists gain hope from Oklahoma prison release

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A disproportionate number of those who end up serving time for crimes like marijuana possession in the US are from visible minority backgrounds.

A sweeping state pardon of people convicted of nonviolent crimes in Oklahoma is giving hope to families and activists that prison reform is coming sooner than expected across the United States.

The commuted sentences were the result of a bipartisan law that classifies some nonviolent property and drug felonies as misdemeanours. Their sentences were shortened to one year and classified as ‘time served’. “Everyone in Oklahoma knows someone in jail,” Blaine Henson, an Oklahoma school teacher, told TRT World. “It’s usually for a small drug charge or something stupid they did when they were young.”The US has one of the highest rates of incarceration in the world, according to the Prison Policy Initiative , a group that advocates for the end of mass incarceration.

The US ‘war on drugs’ has been in effect since the 1970s, with domestic policies contributing to these statistics.

 

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