Biden to Commute Sentences of Nearly 2,500 Drug Offenders

The action, aimed at inmates who received harsher sentences based on old disparities in drug laws, will be the broadest commutation of individual sentences ever issued by a U.S. president.

President Biden announced on Friday that he would commute the sentences of nearly 2,500 inmates serving long prison terms for nonviolent drug offenses, the broadest commutation of individual sentences ever issued by a U.S. president.

The commutations are for offenders who received harsher sentences for drug crimes than they would under current practices, a move aimed at reversing longstanding criminal justice disparities, Mr. Biden said. Those disparities disproportionately affected Black people and fueled mass incarceration, many experts say.

“This action is an important step toward righting historic wrongs, correcting sentencing disparities and providing deserving individuals the opportunity to return to their families and communities after spending far too much time behind bars,” Mr. Biden said in a statement.

The commutations add to Mr. Biden’s sweeping use of his clemency powers as he prepares to leave office. In recent weeks, he has also commuted the sentences of nearly all prisoners on federal death row and set what was a single-day record of 1,500 commutations for those moved to home confinement during the pandemic.

Mr. Biden said he would consider additional pardons, which wipe out convictions, and commutations, which leave the guilty verdict intact but reduce some or all of the punishment, in the coming days. Among others, Mr. Biden has been considering pre-emptive pardons for a number of former elected officials and other people his successor, President-elect Donald J. Trump, may target for political retribution.

Mr. Biden said his latest commutations would help those who received sentences based on now-discredited distinctions between crack and powder cocaine, or faced inflated charges for drug crimes.